The other day I was having lunch at the one remaining non-Chinese food restaurant in what is left of our downtown core and found out that it is for sale. The owner can no longer afford to keep renovating his old building to keep it set up properly for a restaurant. The place is falling apart, he recently spent a lot of money just to get the roof back up barely to non-leaking standard but it isn't enough. He wants to leave the area to be closer to aging parents elsewhere and unload the ruin of his old building.
I can't fault his reasons for wanting to get out of the building and out of the town. I am just sorry it going to leave another huge gap in our downtown services. On days when my husband teaches out of town I love to go downtown to do my errands and splurge on a yummy chicken caesar salad. Another simple pleasure will soon come to an end.
Our chamber of commerce continues to issue statements about the glorious state of our retail sector, but really the only businesses that seem to be thriving, apart from the downtown groceries, are the gasoline stations, fast food drive-ins, agriculture and automotive businesses strung out along the highway from one end of town to the other. Like so many prairie towns, our downtown core is dying a fast death and we are becoming nothing more than a pitstop for people passing through on their way elsewhere. There is getting to be less and less shopping for locals.
We are surrounded here by ghost towns. The signs for the remains of each settlement still stand but this part of our province is fast depopulating and I am guessing that in another ten years our town will join the list of "used to be's".
It is a most depressing state of affairs.
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