Saskatchewan and COVID: Our Stories — Doing business in a pandemic

March 12 marked one year since the first COVID-19 case was reported in Saskatchewan.

Over the next week, 980 CJME and 650 CKOM will bring you stories from across the province reflecting on the past year.

Today, we hear about how businesses in Saskatchewan have weathered the storm and, in some cases, gone down in it.

When COVID-19 found Saskatchewan and the province was put on lockdown, people had to stay home, kids had to be taken out of classrooms and businesses all over — people’s livelihood and sometimes their dream — had to close their doors.

For Susan Minard, owner at Minard’s Leisure World, the first glimpse of the lockdown came weeks before it happened.

She said the business was doing an indoor sale in Regina in the first part of February, and while the company had a strong beginning, she said the crowds started to thin out as the sale went on.

“We thought, ‘Hmm, that’s odd.’ But also every single morning we woke up, we heard COVID news,” said Minard.

It still ended up being a good show for the RV dealer, but Minard said she could tell people’s frame of mind was off.

“As we got home, it wasn’t long after that that we got shut down,” said Minard.

Minard said that part — those weeks they had to be closed — were scary.

“We’ve got staff that have been here for over 20 years and, as a business owner, it’s horrible – it’s a horrible, horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach wondering what’s going to happen,” she said. “What can we do to keep the doors open?”

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But that wouldn’t be a worry for long. Minard said once the lockdown lifted — on both the company’s doors and the doors to the provincial parks — things went crazy.

Minard said sales picked up a lot; she and others were working six and seven days a week while the guys in the shop were working 12-hour days. She called it an “emotional roller coaster.”

“It was like 1,000 pounds was lifted off my shoulders. It was a huge relief,” said Minard.

In the end, Minard said the business had a good year, although it took a while to bounce back from being closed for six weeks.

Essential for building

Minard’s wasn’t the only business that had a good year, ostensibly, because of the pandemic. Garry Burton, a sales rep at Security Building Supplies, said business has doubled in the past year.

The company was able to stay open because it was designated as an essential business, but Burton said things were very slow in March and April — they didn’t know what to expect.

“And then, all of a sudden, it just really took off because people were at home, people weren’t working, people weren’t travelling and they weren’t going anywhere, so they were building decks, fences (and) renovating their homes,” said Burton.

Burton said the last year was comparable to 2013, which was a boom year in Saskatchewan — though in 2013 the orders were fewer but larger. In 2020, Burton said there were more orders but for smaller projects.

“It was amazing how busy it was, because we’ve got six salesmen here and we were all just swamped,” explained Burton.

In the past year, things have certainly changed at Security Building Supplies. When the pandemic first started, Burton said the staff were a little worried about themselves.

“(Customers) are all wearing masks and everything, but who knows where they’ve been and where you’ve been? And then you go home to your families where you work with the public all day,” said Burton.

But since then, he said they’ve all become used to it and things like standing further apart while chatting or deliveries not entering a home unless no one else is inside are normal now.

Closing the doors for good

The pandemic has been good to a few businesses, but many others have had the opposite experience.

Dozens of business across the province didn’t open their doors again after the lockdown lifted, or tried and couldn’t keep things going. Go Big Treats bakery in Regina was one of them.

Cheryl Kirkness is one of the owners. She said they closed their doors just a few days before the provincial mandate came down last spring.

“Our shop was super small inside so we wouldn’t be able to maintain that six feet of distance. So we decided, ‘OK, we’ll just shut it down completely, just offer deliveries and then just kind of take it day by day from there to see how long the shutdown lasted and what, exactly, that was going to entail,’ ” said Kirkness.

Even when the lockdown lifted, Kirkness said the store was so small, the owners continued to only offer deliveries and also didn’t bring any staff back.

Right after lockdown, Kirkness said deliveries were strong, but then as the months stretched on and people’s wallets started to get more bare, the business slowed down, and then it slowed down again when thing started opening and people weren’t stuck at home as much

Many of the money-making arms of the business also weren’t viable anymore — Kirkness said they used to do cookie parties, deliver to offices, set up at trade shows, and open up for the Cathedral Village Arts Festival — but because of the pandemic realities, none of those things continued.

“There was a lot to stress us out at that point, not knowing what the future would bring,” said Kirkness.

At the same time, the business didn’t qualify for any of the relief programs offered and, because they were self-employed, neither Kirkness nor her partner qualified for CERB.

By August, Kirkness said they decided it was time to throw in the towel.

“There was some relief there that, ‘OK, we’re going to have to let this go,’ and you kind of re-evaluate and decide where we’re going to go from here, instead of stressing ourselves out,” she said.

But Kirkness said it was also sad.

“You put so much of your time into a business and so much effort into it, then to lose it, basically, like a year and a half in, was hard to swallow, for sure,” she said.

Taking the leap in a pandemic

It was in March last year that Annabel Townsend signed the lease on the space for her new bookstore in Regina. The next day, Saskatchewan reported its first case of COVID-19.

“Then a week later my kids got sent home from school and then I was like, ‘Oh, this isn’t just a thing on the news,’ ” said Townsend.

Townsend had planned to open the doors to the new shop that spring, but the pandemic and subsequent lockdown ended up pushing that back six months.

She said she was quite worried about having to pay rent on a space she couldn’t use.

“It was a very, very tense few weeks,” said Townsend.

But her landlord was understanding and said she could wait to pay until she opened.

Townsend spent her summer with boxes of books filling her house and trying to figure out how to get things going. With the evidence currently on tables in the store, Townsend joked she spent a lot of time with the kids at home, crafting things for the store.

As many businesses had to, Townsend ended up coming up with a way to adapt — she started a book and coffee bean subscriptions service.

“In hindsight that was a stroke of genius, really,” she said with a laugh. “I think it fit in nicely because everyone was stuck at home and wanting things to read because they couldn’t go anywhere.”

Townsend said it really took off and she was able to build a base of customers for when the store actually ended up opening in September.

When she was finally able to throw open the doors, Townsend said she had an amazing response, and for a winter in a pandemic, business has been extremely good — though she admitted that when the cold snap hit in February she started to get worried.

Looking forward

As more and more people are vaccinated and with the possibility of fewer public health measures on the horizon, Townsend is optimistic.

The shop is set to move into the Cathedral area soon, just a few blocks from its current location, and as restrictions lift, Townsend is looking forward to getting to put on some of the events she hasn’t been able to — like author readings and author markets.

Townsend isn’t holding her breath that vaccinations will go as smoothly as they’re currently planned to, but she admitted everyone being vaccinated in a matter of months is a positive thing to look forward to.

While Kirkness had to close her storefront last summer, in December she restarted the business from her kitchen at home.

She said it’s a bit different and they can’t sell everything they used to because the rules are different for a home-based bakery versus a commercial one, but she said the response from customers has been great.

Minard said the news about vaccines has given her and others around the business a tonne of optimism.

“It has just lifted everyone’s spirits. We’ve got smiling faces everywhere — our customers (and) us. We’ve got something to look forward to,” said Minard.

She’s advising people to buy an RV early if they’re going to, as pandemic effects still mean inventory could be a bit slow in arriving and could go quickly.

And while Burton appreciates that the last year has been great for Security Building Supplies, he doesn’t think it’s going to last too much longer.

“Those people that were around in May and June last year aren’t going to be this year. They’re going to be camping or going fishing or whatever,” said Burton.

Burton said it might stay busy this summer, but he thinks things will slow down by next fall and winter.