An absence of Heart and Sole

The article I have chosen focuses on a shoe-repair store that used to be located within the Don Mills Shopping Center. I found this article to be very interesting, but at the same time, extremely unfair. The store was named, “Quality Shoe Repair”, and it goes back 50 years or more. It was viewed as a stalwart in the old Don Mills mall before it was rebuilt. Kamran, the owner of this shoe repair shop, was forced to move during the teardown of the old mall. The developer, Cadillac Fairview, stuck him in a lonesome corner, away from everything except the dry cleaner.

After the new Don Mills Shopping Center was built, Kamran had been signing monthly contracts with Cadillac Fairview for the 3 years he had been situated in the mall, but it was finally time for him to get the boot. The developers decided that the repair shop looked as if it was too run down and it seemed that it was giving the mall a bad reputation. The repair shop was typical – it had arch cushions and shoe trees all over the place, along with shelves of dyes, polishes, and trays of rubber soles.

Kamran did not know that the landlord was planning on doing this to him. He bought Quality Shoe Repair just prior to the redevelopment of the mall and paid a total of $160,000 for it. In the article, he even mentioned that one of his costumers wrote a letter about the situation, on his behalf, to the president of Cadillac Fairview. The president wrote back by saying, “Sorry I can’t be of more help, business is business.” What puzzles me is that there are five shoe stores in the shops, but not enough room for one repairman.