The shop, located at the Peace Bridge duty-free, stands at Canada’s second-busiest border crossing. Today, the company is facing deep financial crisis and has gone into receivership. The Buffalo and Fort Erie Public Bridge Authority claims that the shop is now in debt to the tune of $17 million for back rent due. This significant debt has accrued over multiple years. The Royal Bank of Canada has filed an impressive $3.3 million debt related to the workshop. This underscores how dire its fiscal condition has gotten.
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice had appointed a receiver. This person will be responsible for operating the new Peace Bridge D duty-free shop. This receiver now has the ability to assume control over the shop’s assets. They are charged with liquidating those assets and repaying creditors. Yet the shop’s duty-free operator argues it owes far less than what was reported. Yet, even without the lawsuit’s costs included, its total debt still runs into millions.
So far, against these odds, the Peace Bridge duty-free shop soldier’s on. Duty-free retailers all over Canada are facing a sales crisis. Much of this drop can be attributed to a $174 million drop in cross-border visits from Canadian and American travelers to Canada. This trend has cut into established revenue streams for countless small and medium-sized businesses in the Niagara Region.
The duty-free shop’s impending demise is symptomatic of a larger economic crisis facing these shops located at international border crossings. Travel and tourism, an industry already reeling from the economic consequences of the pandemic on top of health-related travel restrictions, have plummeted. That has caused consumer spending at retail brick-and-mortars to plummet.
