It's an understatement to merely say it was a surprise to see her with one of those distinctive Home Depot aprons on, working at our local big box store.  She had been there since the spring, she said.  But what about their business?  Confidentially, not to mention it to anyone, they were in the process of winding up, selling out.

This is a Lebanese-Canadian family that had at one time owned two local Dollar stores.  Each of two brothers and their wives working in each of the stores, several miles apart. Other, extended family members helping out.  The profits from which kept both families nicely afloat.

Until a few years back one was informed that their lease in a nearby plaza would not be renewed, after all.  They had always had problems with lease renewal and worked them out, but this time there was nothing to be worked out.  The pharmacy two doors over with a video rental between them, had decided to remake itself into a super-pharmacy and needed the room and the plaza owners were only too happy to accommodate them. 

They set out to look for a new re-location only to discover that with the vigorous spate of commercial building going on, new franchises had been opening up at a tremendous clip resulting in the presence of several larger competitors whose purchasing power was definitely greater than theirs.

Both families were now putting in equal time in the remaining store they shared between them.  They had converted one-third of their store to a gift section with pricier items and for a while they held their own.  Finally, however, a family council seemed to decide that they worked too hard among themselves for the increasingly paltry take. 

They were tired, their business was clapped out, thanks to the competition; they were, after all, a small independent business relying on customer loyalty and such loyalties tended to evaporate as people moved to other locations, and as others realized that there was a greater selection of items in larger premises that were franchises representing large chains with far greater opportunities to practise economies of scale.

The final irony: that this vigorous woman whom we had known for years, the very face of neighbourhood enterprise, had succumbed to what appears to be the inevitable, and was herself forced by circumstances to add to the family coffers by putting in her time working as a 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. employee of the very type of commercial enterprise that put her own family business out of commission.