Going to The Spot actually makes me feel like I have community." Squamish has been a hard place to find a sense of community as so many acquaintances have left due to the cost of living/lack of affordable housing. " have been going to The Spot once a week for the last two years. Teske, a nurse who moved to Squamish two years ago, rents a suite that does not have a washer and dryer. "I am saddened on a personal level, as The Spot has become such an integral part of my life and sense of belonging in Squamish,” Teske wrote. For what?"Ĭustomer Jamee Teske sent a letter to the District in support of The Spot and shared it with The Squamish Chief. "All the people that had a community, owned and operated by locals that have been here for years … and we're getting kicked out. "It's so much bigger than just laundry,” she said. 25, and now the coin laundry which is a community gathering place as well. The long-time local said the bigger picture is that Squamish is losing its community hubs, like Zephyr which closes on Monday, Sept. And I wouldn't have ever done this, if this was the outcome,” she said. "I've only been open here for four years I've invested my entire life savings. She said it would be incredibly financially challenging - if there were a suitable spot available - to start up somewhere else in Squamish, she said. The closure will also have an impact on Leier personally. The downtown location works for her clients and she would be open to various options, but her efforts to come to some solution where she doesn’t have to leave have gone nowhere, she said. She said she wanted and continues to want to work out solutions with her landlords. Leier was not given any reminders, she said, leaving her with the impression that the landlords just don’t want her type of business in the building. "I can also confidently say that I would have forgotten to renew had they not reminded me." They just called a few months before the end of my lease and offered to write a new contract," the spokesperson said. She also says other tenants got reminders to sign their leases.Ī spokesperson for the neighbouring Baltech Electronics confirmed to The Squamish Chief that they were "invited directly by the landlords to renew lease. She had put the date in her phone, but days before that date, the landlords gave her the notice to leave. It was implicit I was staying," she said.įrom what she had read in her lease documents, she thought she had three months to sign. "I spoke to them in length about plans for the coming year. Leier acknowledges that she had an option to renew in April, but though she didn't sign officially then, she thought continuing the tenancy was a given. "However, these circumstances occur like when a tenant doesn’t renew their option,” Wilson said. Jeff Wilson, president of Vancouver-based Rural Stores, told The Squamish Chief the company would not comment on this specific situation "as all commercial leases are confidential.” She opened the business four years ago and this was her first experience renewing her lease. Leier said she was gobsmacked to get the news earlier this summer. Leier's landlords Rural Stores have notified her that she must be out by Nov. Soon, however, The Spot will close, leaving Squamish without a public coin laundry. The downtown location, which is across from The Squamish Chief on Second Avenue, is almost always busy. Owner Ashleigh Leier breaks a $20 for them and fills them in on how to operate the coin shower at the back of the laundromat. A young couple enters to ask how the pay shower works. It is Thursday morning at The Spot laundry in downtown Squamish.
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