Farewell to Oz

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This article was published 05/12/2023 (662 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Winnipeg beauty chain is saying a difficult goodbye to Osborne Village after years of safety concerns and decreased foot traffic.

Fiona Zhao opened Unique Bunny in the village eight years ago. For the first several years, repeat customers would regularly pop in, say hello and often buy a small item or two. That all changed with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I really value this location,” Zhao said.

The promise of revitalization — the village is welcoming new businesses and apartments — is not enough to make her stay. For now.

“We believe that it’s going to pick up,” she said. “(But) I don’t think it’s worthwhile for our staff to wait there for another two to three years, to wait for the environment to get better.”

Kazumi Yoshino, Unique Bunny’s general manager, told the Free Press last year that the company regularly called police over attempted thefts and harassment.

“It should not be something we have to worry about while we’re working,” Yoshino said last week, highlighting she stresses about junior staff working alone.

The shop has been broken into once; more attempts followed but were unsuccessful due to better protective measures, Zhao said.

“A lot of people in my life have been telling me, ‘Oh, you just need to learn to deal with it,’” she stated. “I don’t want to get used to it.

“Getting used to crime is not something normal, and you should not ever feel (it) is normal.”

Unique Bunny’s lease on its village store ended in October, Zhao said. It has locations on Pembina Highway and in the Seasons outlet mall. Another will open at Northgate Shopping Centre this December. The Osborne store will remain open until Dec. 23.

“The safety of our staff and the building became the concern of our business life,” Zhao stated.

Zhao said the cancellation last year of the event drawing Unique Bunny most of its business — the Canada Day celebration — combined with customers’ difficulty finding parking were other factors behind her decision to leave Osborne.

“So much less people browse around since COVID hit,” added Yoshino.

Leaving is emotional — the Osborne Village site elicited joy and love, Zhao said. She’d like to return eventually, she added.

Urban Waves, a record shop near the juncture of Osborne Street and Pembina Highway, hasn’t experienced much crime over the past year, its co-owner stated.

However, foot traffic isn’t near where it was pre-pandemic, Brent Jackson said.

“It’s very much alive,” he said of the area. “It’s just a matter of getting more people to be interested to come down here.”

Crumb Queen, a restaurant and pastry shop, just opened nearby. Down the block, the Zu apartment is being built.

“There’s always renewal in Osborne Village,” said Coun. Sherri Rollins, the elected official for the ward.

She questioned the area’s police presence. Since last year, she’s been helping fund patrolling by the Sabe Peace Walkers, an Indigenous group focused on harm reduction.

“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that where there are foot patrols, there are issues that are not being addressed sufficiently,” Rollins stated.

“There have been times where, as a local councillor, I’m shaking my head going, ‘What is going on with the basic patrol?’”

Downtown and the West End both have foot patrols; police presence downtown has increased, Rollins noted.

The WPS typically doesn’t share how many resources it deploys to a given area, but foot patrols cover the city, Const. Dani McKinnon said.

The police force’s city-wide retail theft initiative focuses on small shops and big box locations alike, she continued.

Rollins expressed excitement for the future of the area — the local business improvement zone released a strategic plan in 2022 and there’s new developments.

“Safety is really high on our priorities, in terms of things that we are looking at with the BIZ,” said Zohreh Gervais, the new executive director of the Osborne Village BIZ.

Crime is affecting all of Winnipeg and beyond, she underscored. Locally, the BIZ is looking to collaborate with different organizations on a “multi-faceted approach.”

Physical changes, including increased lighting, are planned for the Village, Gervais stated.

“There’s a public perception that there are big safety issues in Osborne,” she noted. “(It’s) a systemic, city-wide thing.”

More than half of businesses across the province have been impacted by crime directly or indirectly, a November Canadian Federation of Independent Business report found.

“A lot of businesses, they really are struggling to mitigate the impact of crime, especially in Manitoba,” noted SeoRhin Yoo, a Canadian Federation of Independent Business policy analyst based in Manitoba.

The New Democrats promised a $300 rebate for small businesses to increase security during their election campaign.

Yoo called the rebate “quite low” compared to a similar program in British Columbia.

Justice Minister Matt Wiebe told the Free Press last month the province would reach out to groups like the CFIB about the rebate.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com