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It’s easy for small business to stay small in the Village – Metro US

It’s easy for small business to stay small in the Village

A true village to its core, Bloor West Village is a tight little microcosm of stores, schools and residential perks all designed to make the area self-sufficient.

Located just northwest of High Park, the village, the neighbourhood is also home to Toronto’s first and oldest business improvement areas (BIA), the Bloor West Village BIA, which claims to also be the first organization of its kind in the world.

No surprise then that a strong business community has long been a large part of what makes the village tick.

Since moving the family business here nearly four decades ago, Brown’s Sports and Cycle (2447 Bloor St. W.) owner Steve Quennell has seen the village mature into a place that defies simple categorization.

“The Bloor West Village philosophy has always been not to be pigeonholed — it’s not a ‘Greektown’ or a restaurant district, it’s very much a small village within a larger community. There’s a very diverse community here,” Quennell said.

Residents of the village tend to be loyal to local businesses and strongly involved in local affairs, Quennell says.

“People really have that sense of community here. They feel they have that responsibility, that connection. Everyone seems to have an association with that pride and there’s a lot of community involvement,” Quennell said.

At specialty tea shop Say Tea (2362 Bloor St. W.), owner Krystyna Lawrence loves the fact that Bloor West Village is an easy place for small businesses to stay small. She used to be an accountant until six years ago she took over the store which this year celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in the neighbourhood.

“I don’t want to be corporate at all and that’s an easy thing to do here. We’ve actually been doing better than I thought we would, even given the recession,” Lawrence said.

Still, challenges exist: Lawrence says a sizeable number of owners along the Bloor Street shopping stretch have been retiring recently but expects new, younger owners to continue to step in to fill the void.

Jozef Karol owns Fiddler’s Dell Bar and Grill (781 Annette St.) in the northern part of the village, a family business passed down to him from his grandfather. He says the recent conversion of parking space along the nearby streets into bike lanes has been painful to businesses located away from Bloor Street but the support of local customers has kept him from moving.

“Businesses are definitely suffering due to the lack of parking here, that’s definitely the biggest problem right now. But it is a very friendly neighbourhood and most of the customers here are local,” Karol said.