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BUSINESS
THE ADVOCATE Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Last call at Lux Lounge BAR SOLD, EXPECTED TO RE-OPEN IN AUGUST UNDER NEW NAME BY MARY-ANN BARR ADVOCATE STAFF A downtown lounge in Red Deer has changed ownership and will reopen in August with a new name and other changes. The lounge, located at 4928C 50 St., was formerly known as the Olive, which was sold to a group of six people only last fall. It was then renamed the Lux Lounge. The newest owner of the lounge, Sean Draper, took possession of the business on July 15. It is closed now until changes are made, he said. Draper, 35, also owns the cocktail
lounge To The Lost and is part-owner of the Red Boar Smokery, both also on 50th (Ross) Street. He said the former Olive is in a good spot, and often when To The Lost was full, patrons would be directed to the Olive. He said he wants to change the theme of the new business and a few people have suggested it be turned back to what it was as the Olive. “But I don’t think you should ever step back. I think you have to move ahead, so I’m going to put my own little twist on the place.” He’s aiming to be open before the middle of August and hasn’t finalized
the lounge’s new name. He said he has a close relationship with many of the artists in the city and has reached out to them. Draper said downtown Red Deer is becoming a good place to visit. The new large Hudson’s Pub downtown
has had a great impact because it draws more people into the downtown, he said. With other businesses such as the Chill Out Cafe and Bakery, the Coconut Room and 50 West, “It’s all really coming together down there. It’s really nice. And City Hall has a beautiful park. We just want to get people down there.” “It’s happening, which is pretty cool.” Besides a business owner, Draper has also been a bartender for 16 years, 13 of those in Red Deer. He still does a stint as a bartender on Sunday nights at the Vat.
SEAN DRAPER
Brexit will drag down growth: IMF BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS
Jeff Powers, assistant manager at Rock Candy Boutique, puts up a sign encouraging Pokémon Go players to play inside the store in Halifax on Tuesday. Some Canadian businesses are jumping on the popular Pokémon Go video game craze by encouraging people to use their shops and bars as a stop in their quest to catch the mythical creatures.
Canadian businesses trying to capitalize on Pokémon Go fever BY THE CANADIAN PRESS TORONTO — The Pokémon Go sign directing people to the front door of Rock Candy Boutique in Halifax has only been up for a week, but Jeff Powers says he is already seeing it pay off. “Downtown is alive in a way that I haven’t seen in a long, long time,” said Powers, a manager at the store, which sells various rock music T-shirts, hoodies, hats and other paraphernalia. “There is just a flood from everybody, from young kids to older adults, and you can tell they’re playing this game.” That would be Pokémon Go, which officially launched in Canada on Sunday. The wildly popular video game sends players on a quest to find superimposed animated characters on a map-like interface using the camera on their smartphones. It is currently the most downloaded app in the Apple app store. Powers said Tuesday the sign has brought people into the store who
Business BRIEFS MEC announces plans to open two new Calgary stores VANCOUVER — Mountain Equipment Co-op announced plans Tuesday to open two new stores in Calgary within the next three years. The company says it will open a 30,000-square foot location in the Seton Urban District of southeast Calgary in the fall of 2018, followed six months later by a 27,000-square foot store in west Calgary’s Medicine Hill community in 2019. The Vancouver-based retailer says the stores will provide about 160 jobs through a mix of senior staff, full-time,
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wouldn’t normally shop there but hear it’s a good place to play the augmented reality video game. “This has just blown up bigger than anybody has expected,” he said, adding that the various Pokémon merchandise the store carries have also been flying off the shelves. “It leads people to travel down streets they normally wouldn’t. It’s bringing a lot of foot traffic down to the side streets and a lot of people are coming in and buying things because they were just in the area.” Some Canadian businesses have been jumping on the craze by actively encouraging potential customers to use their shops as PokéStops or Pokémon gyms — locations to play the game. But marketing professor Ken Wong cautioned that although it may seem like a no-brainer for businesses to capitalize on Pokémon Go’s popularity, it can also backfire. “It’s a statement of what your brand is, who it stands for and who it seeks to appeal to,” said Wong, who is with the
Stephen J.R. Smith School of Business at Queen’s University. “While it may generate traffic for you, whether or not that traffic generates profitability in the short, and more importantly, long term is a different story. If you’re in a business that needs a promotion to stay in business, you’re already on a slippery slope.” Wong said the publicity stunt would mostly profit businesses that appeal to the biggest demographic of Pokémon Go players or have a link to the game — for example, stores that sell cellphone accessories or comic books. There may be a potential to grow business in the short term, but he doesn’t see that enduring. “Eventually the novelty will wear off. There will always be diehards but it’s no different than the Trivial Pursuit craze,” he said. “If you are the right kind of business, get in as soon as you can when the fad has the greatest duration of effect, because if you wait too long, the fad will be over.”
part-time and casual positions. The two new Calgary stores would deepen MEC’s recent investments in Alberta. MEC’s South Edmonton Common location is scheduled to open this fall and the capital’s downtown store will be relocated to the Edmonton Brewery district next spring. The store developments are part of an unprecedented period of growth for MEC. Its sales topped $350 million for the first time last year, while membership grew by more than 225,000. New stores are also set to open later this year in Laval, Que., and the Toronto suburb of North York.
times of crisis. The order was awarded by the U.S. Senate Sergeant at Arms Office in Washington, D.C. BlackBerry says its AtHoc system will be fully implemented for the Capitol complex over the coming months. The company (TSX:BB) didn’t say how many millions of dollars the Senate contract will be worth over five years. Once running, the system will provide secure notification and communication for up to 50,000 individuals at the complex. BlackBerry chief executive John Chen has positioned BlackBerry to get more of its revenue from software sales — rather than its handsets, which have lost most of their market share to Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxy smartphones. BlackBerry also announced that its AtHoc division will extend the capability of the U.S. Coast Guard’s warning system to allow staff members in the National Capitol Region to receive and respond to emergency alerts through their computers.
BlackBerry picked for crisis communications system at U.S. Capitol complex NEW YORK — BlackBerry says it has received a multimillion-dollar order for secure software that would used in the U.S. Capitol complex in
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WASHINGTON — Britain’s decision to leave the European Union will reduce global economic growth this year and next, the International Monetary Fund says. The IMF said Tuesday that it is shaving its estimate for worldwide growth to 3.1 per cent this year and 3.4 per cent in 2017. Both estimates are 0.1 percentage points lower than the bank’s previous forecast in April. IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said the bank was prepared as of June 22 — the day before Britain’s vote — to slightly mark up its global forecast, citing unexpectedly strong growth in Europe and Japan and a partial rebound in global commodity prices. “But Brexit has thrown a spanner in the works,” Obstfeld said. Britain must now renegotiate its trade relationship with Europe, creating uncertainty that could erode consumer and business confidence and freeze investment. For Canada, the IMF shaved a tenth of a percentage point off its expectations for economic growth this year, marking down its prediction to 1.4 per cent. But the think tank increased its forecast for Canada next year by twotenths of a percentage point to 2.1 per cent. The world’s two biggest economies — the United States and China — are unlikely to sustain much damage from the tumult in Europe, the IMF said. The IMF earlier downgraded its forecast for U.S. growth this year to 2.2 per cent after the American economy got off to a slow start this year, partly because a strong dollar pinched exports. The fund has raised its forecast for Chinese growth this year to 6.6 per cent from an April forecast of 6.5 per cent. The improvement reflects economic stimulus from five interest rate cuts last year and an increase in government spending on infrastructure. Sub-Saharan Africa continues to struggle with the fallout from last year’s free fall in commodity prices. The Nigerian economy is expected to shrink 1.8 per cent, a dramatic turnaround from the IMF’s April forecast for 2.3 per cent growth. The South African economy is forecast to eke out 0.1 per cent growth.
Ikea Canada to begin accepting PayPal BURLINGTON, Ont. — Ikea Canada is adding a PayPal payment option for online purchases from the home furnishings company. The Swedish retailer says it wants to make Ikea more accessible to Canadians. PayPal has about 6.4 million active user accounts in Canada. The service is an alternative to credit and debit cards, which Ikea Canada will continue to accept. Walmart stopped taking the Visa credit card at some of its stores in Thunder Bay, Ont., on Monday in a dispute over fees. Visa Canada says it offered Walmart one of the lowest rates in the country but the department store chain wanted more. Walmart says credit card fees in Canada are too high by international standards and has threatened to ban Visa cards at all 400 of its stores in the country.
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