{"id":574219511,"date":"2021-04-16T09:35:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T14:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/headliner\/2021\/04\/16\/pandemic-puts-limo-business-in-limbo"},"modified":"2021-04-16T09:40:20","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T14:40:20","slug":"pandemic-puts-limo-business-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/headliner\/2021\/04\/16\/pandemic-puts-limo-business-in-limbo","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic puts limo business in limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"

A local limousine driver is selling his vehicles to get by, and La Salle residents are rallying to garner support and business for him.<\/div>\n
Sam Harb is the owner and head driver of Oak Bluff Limo, a 24-hour shuttle service based in the Rural Municipality of Macdonald.<\/div>\n
Before COVID-19 attacked Manitoba, folks would call for rides to weddings, socials, sports games, graduations and anniversary celebrations. Harb or a family member would take one of the company’s eight limousines — or Harb’s school bus — to transport people where they needed to go.<\/div>\n
But people aren’t going out as much, and the calls have stopped coming. Harb has been refunding deposits for the past year and crossing out plans.<\/div>\n
“Nothing’s been happening at all,” Harb said. “I’m hoping for the summer. Hopefully, hopefully it’ll lift up a little bit.”<\/div>\n
In the meantime, Harb sold his school bus on Facebook Marketplace. He’d use it to take a large group of sports fans to hockey and football games in the city, or to shuttle wedding parties and guests to and from rural venues.<\/div>\n
Harb said he put one of his limousines up for sale at Associated Auto Auction. He plans to keep at least two to three limousines for his business.<\/div>\n
Michelle McDonald, a La Salle resident who works at RAM Engineering in town, decided to go out for dinner in April with her husband and, at the last minute, called Harb for a ride.<\/div>\n
RAM Engineering gets Harb to transport its employees home after work functions where people have had alcohol, like Christmas parties. McDonald said Harb is like a neighbour.<\/div>\n
“He’s a good man,” she said. “He’s part of our community, even though he doesn’t live in La Salle.”<\/div>\n
He’ll go the extra step to ensure people get home safely, McDonald said.<\/div>\n
“I know I could call him in the middle of the night and say ‘Sam, I’m stuck, I need a ride,’” she said. “He would do anything to come get you — that’s the type of man he is. It’s not because he’s trying to run a business or trying to make a dollar; he’s just got that kind of heart.”<\/div>\n
After speaking with Harb, McDonald learned his limo business was struggling. So, she made a post on a La Salle community Facebook page encouraging people to call Harb if they’re going out for dinner or need a ride somewhere.<\/div>\n
“A lot of times it’s out of sight, out of mind,” McDonald said. “When we’re all busy running around … we think about it, but right now we’re not thinking about it and we’ve got to just do a little extra.”<\/div>\n
Jessica Duncan, a La Salle resident, saw McDonald’s social media message. It lined up well with her family date night on April 7 — she, her husband and three daughters were going to Boston Pizza. It was the anniversary of a spontaneous fancy dinner the Duncans had at home during lockdown last year.<\/div>\n
So, Duncan hired Harb. Her three children were surprised to see a limousine roll up to their driveway.<\/div>\n
“It was the best feeling ever, seeing my kids lose their marbles,” she said.<\/div>\n
The kids spent most of the drive to the city questioning Harb, and he made easy banter with them, Duncan said.<\/div>\n
While the family ate dinner, Harb bought each child a bag of candy, which he gave when he picked them up.<\/div>\n
“Right to the bone, this man is a rockstar,” Duncan said. “We were blown away.”<\/div>\n
Most of Harb’s customers come from La Salle, Oak Bluff, Starbuck, Morris and Ste. Agathe. He doesn’t advertise; word of mouth seems to work, he said. <\/div>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":295500301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_classifai_error":"","_classifai_text_to_speech_error":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[21,9],"tags":[],"education-subject":[],"media-literacy-topic":[],"post_topic":[],"content_type":[24],"class_list":["post-574219511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-headliner"],"acf":{"short_title":"","seo_title":"","deck":"","story_tag":"","byline":" Gabrielle Pich\u00e9","updates":null},"apple_news_notices":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/headliner\/2021\/04\/16\/pandemic-puts-limo-business-in-limbo","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Pandemic puts limo business in limbo","url":"http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/headliner\/2021\/04\/16\/pandemic-puts-limo-business-in-limbo","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/headliner\/2021\/04\/16\/pandemic-puts-limo-business-in-limbo"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/gp-Limo1-April21.jpg?w=150&h=150&crop=1","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/our-communities\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2022\/04\/gp-Limo1-April21.jpg"},"articleSection":"News","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"feedloaderapi"}],"creator":["feedloaderapi"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Our Communities","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2021-04-16T14:35:00Z","datePublished":"2021-04-16T14:35:00Z","dateModified":"2021-04-16T14:40:20Z"},"rendered":"