Working 9 to 5?

OSHAWA -- It’s a source of great debate among downtown Oshawa business owners and restaurateurs.
    
How late should they stay open in the evenings? Can they still get away with closing on Sundays? Should the businesses set common hours?
   
Unlike shopping malls and big-box stores with their predictable schedules, downtown Oshawa’s entrepreneurs offer a dizzying array of hours -- from name-brand fast food outlets that operate seven days a week from early morning until the wee hours of the night to a mom and pop store that may close Mondays, stay open until 5 p.m. one evening, 7 p.m. another, and open Saturday but not Sunday.
   
David Tuley, the City’s downtown development officer, said people expect a certain amount of variety in a downtown because it is a collective of individual operators.
   
“You just can’t make comparisons to an indoor mall,” he said. “In the downtown each store has its own personality. And they’re not all the type of business that is conducive to being open on the weekend.”
   
However, sometimes too much individuality can create confusion and frustration.
   
“I had been to the sushi place down here for lunch during the week and when I came shopping with my daughter on the weekend we were going to go,” said Oshawa resident Bonnie Turnbull, who was browsing the downtown on her lunch hour this week. “We were surprised when it was closed. These days you kind of just expect things to be open during regular business hours.”
   
The business owners say it’s a difficult change to make because the downtown is still on the cusp of its renaissance.
   
There isn’t necessarily a lot of traffic in the evenings and on weekends, which makes store owners shy away from opening at those times. But if nothing is open, there is no reason for people to come to the area.
   
“It’s half the downtown’s fault because people don’t open in the evenings and weekends, but the other half of the problem is the public’s perception of the downtown,” said Giacomo Bruno, owner of Isabella’s Chocolate Cafe. “I think the business owners need to make the change first.”
   
Isabella’s keeps daytime hours during the week, staying open until 11 p.m. on Friday nights, when there is often live music or other special events.
   
The cafe also opens Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Mr. Bruno is hoping to bring Sundays into the mix this fall when business typically picks up.
   
While business is steady during the week, he said Saturdays have been lukewarm so far. But he is sticking with it, hoping things will improve.
   
“I’m not going to give up on Saturdays,” he said.
   
At nearby women’s clothing store Strut, new owner Nicola Henderson is similarly determined. When she took over this past spring, she opted to keep the store open until 8 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and include Saturday and Sunday hours.
   
But she said she can’t do it alone and needs the rest of the downtown to get in on the act.
   
Her biggest concern right now is that few restaurants -- aside from the fast-food chains -- open during the day on weekends.
   
“People want to have lunch when they’re shopping and if there’s nothing open here they’re going to go to the mall where there’s a food court,” she said. “I think Sunday shopping and evenings would be feasible for all of us, but everyone has to get together to make it work, the restaurants especially.”
   
That reality isn’t lost on Domenic Albis, one of the owners of Avanti Trattoria, a King Street Italian restaurant celebrating its one-year anniversary downtown this summer.

Avanti is open for lunch during the week and draws strong crowds, but doesn’t open until dinnertime on the weekends.
   
“Now that the downtown is growing, we’re getting requests for weekend lunch and we’re planning on doing that at some point,” he said. “I can understand both sides of the coin on this issue. Some people are set in their ways and it doesn’t work for them to be open at night or on the weekend. But if we’re trying to promote the downtown, things have to be open.”
   
Councillor Louise Parkes, who sits on the Downtown Oshawa Board of Management, has been a cheerleader for change in the area.
   
There needs to be a concrete reason for long-standing businesses to change their hours, she said, adding she believes things will start to change once UOIT moves its faculty of education students downtown this fall and the Regent Theatre opens in December.