Most video stores in Vancouver will close by the end of the year, according to German Camacho, who has owned Applause Video on Commercial Drive for 24 years.
Camacho has been gradually selling his collection, and he plans to stop renting videos on July 8.
“I’ve already sold about half of my collection,” he told Business in Vancouver July 4. “I got rid of all the mediocre titles and have been saving the ones that are most popular.”
Once he stops renting his videos and puts everything up for sale, he expects it will take one week to be out of stock.
Commercial Drive lost another video store, Alpha Video, earlier this year. Black Dog Video, also on Commercial Drive, will likely benefit in the short run, and Camacho said he hopes Black Dog Video owner Darren Gay is able to survive and run a profitable business.
The problem is that many people are downloading videos onto computers or using video on demand services from cable suppliers.
That prompted Videomatica owners Brian Bosworth and Graham Peat to announce in May that they would close this summer. (See “Philanthropist poised to save Videomatica collection” – BIV Daily News, May 10.)
Later that month, Blockbuster Canada announced that 146 of its locations would close in June, leaving 1,400 people unemployed.
Other mom-and-pop video stores such as Giga Video on Burrard Street closed soon after that news.
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: GlenKorstrom