Economy of Greater Sudbury - Retailing

Retailing

Retail businesses in the city has moved outside of the downtown core in the late 20th century and the city has struggled to maintain a vibrant downtown. Projects aimed at revitalizing the downtown core included the creation of Market Square, a farmer's and craft market; the redevelopment of the Rainbow Centre Mall; streetscape beautification projects; and the creation of the Downtown Village Development Corporation, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to business attraction and downtown residential development. More recently, institutions such as the Franklin Carmichael Gallery and the Northern Ontario School of Architecture have chosen to locate downtown, in part to help spur new retail development due to increased tourist and pedestrian activity.

Despite these efforts, a considerable volume of the city's retail activity is still concentrated outside of the downtown core, particularly in areas such as the New Sudbury Centre, the Four Corners/South End and the RioCan and Silver Hills power centres on The Kingsway.

Sudbury is one of the few cities in Ontario where a municipal by-law currently prevents stores from opening on December 26, meaning that retail stores in the city begin their post-Christmas Boxing Day sales on December 27. Some of the city's business owners have alleged that this restriction causes a loss of business, as some shoppers in the region travel to Barrie or Toronto to take advantage of the earlier shopping day. With labour unions being a prominent political force in the city, the issue of balancing the rights of retailers to set business hours against the rights of workers to holiday time at Christmas has been a persistent debate in Sudbury's municipal politics. In the 2010 municipal election, mayoral candidate Marianne Matichuk made a campaign pledge to deregulate store hours in the city, including allowing Boxing Day shopping; although she won election to the mayoralty, her motion to repeal the by-law failed when she presented it to city council in 2011. In early 2012, city councillor Ron Dupuis proposed putting the question to a voter referendum in the 2014 municipal election.