Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack
The three main malls in Ottawa: St Laurent, Rideau and Bayshore, are all open on Saturday night until 9. But close at 5 or 6 on Sundays.
I've been to St Laurent exactly once on a Saturday night. Because I had no choice. Long story.
Anyway it was noticeable that the vast majority of shoppers were what you might call "new Canadians". Tons of families in particular. This part of Ottawa has a lot of "new Canadians" to begin with, but on a Saturday afternoon one doesn't necessarily get the impression that they make up most of the clientele. On Saturday night (or at least that Saturday night), you certainly did.
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Quebec's regulated shopping hours mean that non-grocery stores have to close at 5pm on Saturday and Sunday. When we go to Rouyn-Noranda, we always remind ourselves to go to the grocery store last and get beer as it will be open until 9 or 10pm.
Here in Timmins most stores close at 6pm on Saturday with the exception of Walmart which closes at 11pm every day of the week. Canadian Tire once stayed open until 10pm Mon-Sat but no longer does due to trouble finding people to work there. Home Depot is open until 7pm on Saturday.
In Southwestern Ontario, especially London, Sarnia and Windsor, many stores and malls stay open until 9 or 10pm on Saturdays. And they have been doing it since at least the early 1990s. I think it was originally done to try to stop people from going to Michigan to shop.
People like me would actually shop Saturday evening if we could. And our Walmart here is very busy Saturday evenings. Our grocery stores are also open and that's usually when I go shopping at Your Independent Grocer. Many retailers here cannot find enough people to work at their stores so they have to cut back hours as the employees they have don't want to work later.