Disastrous holiday season for merchants in the Latin Quarter

The holiday season was particularly disastrous for many merchants in the Latin Quarter, with some experiencing the worst sales of their lives.

“My bar has just had the worst holiday season sales in its history,” laments Martin Guimond, the owner of Brasserie le Saint-Bock located on Saint-Denis Street, very close to Ontario.

For example, early Saturday evening, his bar had only two customers… for five employees.

The situation is such that he does not rule out having to close if traffic does not increase quickly. He gives himself 100 days to achieve this.

Until then, he will have to lay off some employees and cut already shortened opening hours.

Employees at home

Further down in Saint-Denis, the co-owner of the barber Upcuts, Aziz Zoubi, made “50% fewer cuts during the holiday season this year than last year”.

He had to keep employees at home and convince his landlord not to raise the rent. He would have been unable to pay. “It would have been the equivalent of throwing me out,” he explains.

Times are so hard for traders in the sector that many are even unable to pay their annual contribution to the Commercial Development Corporation (SDC), which costs between $4,000 and $5,000.

On the “artificial respirator”

“The Latin Quarter is on life support,” worries Martin Guimond, who compares rue Saint-Denis to “a ghost village filled with waste.”

Rats, poor garbage collection, dirt, incessant work, inflation, cohabitation with the homeless and drug use are among other difficulties raised by the traders met by the Journal.

“The neighborhood needs leadership to be able to move forward again,” believes Jean-Yves Mas, who owns and operates Le Psy, a wine and cheese bar, with his partner Martine Daigneault.

For their part, the Holidays went well overall. The fact remains that Mr. Mas believes that the traders have been “abandoned by the SDC”, which has changed its general director several times in recent years.

“The Latin Quarter is very different from what it has been in recent years,” recognizes Julien Vaillancourt, who took the reins of the SDC last September
.

The manager, however, is optimistic: he intends in particular to offer more services to his members, seek more subsidies and forge stronger links with organizations that help the homeless.

With Olivier Faucher.