Giant Tiger to close two city stores

Two Winnipeg Giant Tiger stores are set to shutter mid-summer.

The locations at 1441 Main St. and 305 McPhillips St. will close July 3 and July 31, respectively, a spokesperson for the Canadian discount retail chain confirmed.

The stores are “in locations that are challenging for our business model,” Alison Scarlett shared in a statement Tuesday.

A video from the McPhillips site went viral last year: in it, staff members appeared to struggle against two women attempting to leave with a loaded cart.

Retail theft has impacted Giant Tiger’s Winnipeg locations but it hasn’t been a deciding factor for the announced closures, Scarlett underscored.

The company is shuttering seven of its more than 260 shops across Canada because the sites “cannot meet our franchise business model,” she said.

Giant Tiger’s analysis is an ordinary course of business, Scarlett added.

On Tuesday, John Graham, Retail Council of Canada’s director of government relations for the Prairies, echoed the Ottawa-based company’s stance.

It’s an old tale — corporations review their networks and make cuts in underperforming locations, Graham said. “In the case of some retailers, they’re finding that their older, central Winnipeg locations are performing not as well as the suburbs.”

Newer neighbourhoods on the city’s outskirts, such as Sage Creek and Bridgwater, appeal to retailers because of the growing populations and relative lack of industry competition, Graham said. Nearby competition in the city softens sales, he added.

Still, discount retailers have increasingly gained popularity amid years of high inflation, Graham said.

Giant Tiger opened four stores in Eastern Canada during the latter half of 2023.

“It’s just a matter of readjusting store locations to where … any retailer believes the highest opportunity for growth comes from,” Graham reiterated.

Customer and employee safety and the cost of retail crime have increasingly become factors when deciding whether to continue a site’s operations, Graham said, adding it’s not usually the dominant reason to shutter.

Robert Ofiaza said Tuesday he has watched apparent thieves bolt from the McPhillips Street Giant Tiger store while he’s cleaning windows at nearby Thanh Vi Restaurant.

“(There are) stealing people, constantly, every day,” Ofiaza said.

The downtown Winnipeg block that includes the Giant Tiger on McPhillips — bordered by McPhillips and Arlington streets — logged a steep jump in reported theft (not including vehicles) between 2022 and 2023, according to city police data.

The year ending February 2023 marked 41 reported thefts, up from six incidents the year prior. The year ending February 2024 also logged 41 reported thefts.

Despite witnessing crime, Ofiaza said he’ll miss the discount store. The clothes are cheap and the socks last longer than other box store offerings, he remarked.

Customers often order from Than Vi Restaurant and leave to peruse Giant Tiger while waiting for their meals. Ofiaza said he hasn’t noticed a decline in the area’s foot traffic.

News of the closures dampened Giant Tiger shoppers’ spirits.

“There’s a lot of low-income people that come here,” noted Gerald Chornoby, while examining the meat selection inside the McPhillips Street location. “I don’t know why they’d want to close it down. There’s really no competition here.”

Chornoby said he is among the Winnipeg residents participating in a boycott of Loblaw Companies: protesters are decrying high grocery prices, refusing to buy at Real Canadian Superstore and Shoppers Drug Mart locations during the month of May. Closing the Giant Tiger on McPhillips removes one of Chornoby’s closest alternatives.

Tony DeRose called the impending closures “crazy” — he’s bought groceries from the Main Street site for years.

The local area that includes the Giant Tiger on Main Street has clocked a 192 per cent year-over-year increase in theft (not including vehicles), according to the Winnipeg Police Service’s latest data. The year ending February 2024 logged 82 reported thefts.

Kaitlyn Peters hopes a local entrepreneur will purchase the soon to be vacated Main Street building.

“We’d just like to see more of that in the North End, where it’s … the small, local guys,” said Peters, general manager of Pollock’s Hardware Co-op.

The building at 1441 Main St. has been sold, according to a listing on Capital Commercial Real Estate. The asking price for the 19,941-square-foot space was $2.97 million.

Giant Tiger’s soon-to-be former home at 305 McPhillips St. has yet to be listed with an asking price.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com

Gabrielle Piché
Reporter

Gabrielle Piché reports on business for the Free Press. She interned at the Free Press and worked for its sister outlet, Canstar Community News, before entering the business beat in 2021. Read more about Gabrielle.

Every piece of reporting Gabrielle produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.