A group of businesses, excluded from the capital city’s Water Street Pedestrian Mall proposal for this summer, say it’s time for the city to consider expanding the mall plan.
Duckworth Street businesses are possibly being shut out again of the initiative that many involved agree proved to be a great success last summer.
While last year was touted as a success for Water Street, businesses on Duckworth are posting on Facebook that they were financially devastated by being near the mall but excluded from it. They report not seeing the spillover that city council said would occur. Instead, people parked on their street and walked over to Water Street.
Elizabeth Mysyk owns The Sprout Restaurant on Duckworth and says her business picked up after the pedestrian mall shut down last year.
She says she did better in October than August—which has never happened before—and that’s not because of the pandemic.
Elizabeth Mysyk spoke on the VOCM Morning Show. Listen below:
Mysyk says the pedestrian mall needs to be beneficial to more downtown areas, as it ended up hurting a lot of businesses who were excluded. She states on her Facebook page that several Duckworth businesses are at risk of being forced to close and really need the pedestrian mall boost this summer.
Mysyk and other Duckworth businesses have launched a petition asking that the pedestrian mall idea only be considered if it gives all interested sections of the downtown an opportunity to be part of it.
In addition, Mysyk and other downtown businesses have launched an email writing campaign asking residents to write a sentence or two to city councillors on their behalf, before March 12 as many businesses are at risk of closure.
She says the Duckworth businesses want to make it clear that they aren’t against the mall idea; they want to make sure as many businesses get to benefit from it as possible. Mysyk says the mall and the city need to support everyone with equal business opportunities so they can all have a chance to succeed.
She says if we allow the city to keep investing $180,000 a year into supporting only one small group of businesses each summer, we’re going to keep seeing other businesses struggle and have to shut down.
Mysyk says this is something that has to be done fairly.
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