Consider this hypothetical situation: Store A is in one location and is having difficulty consistently attracting customers, incurring losses of $60,000. Store B is in a different location and is having even more trouble: they’re $100,000 in the hole.
The solution? Switch places.
Now replace Store A with the Greenroom and Store B with the Tricolour Market, spend $20,000 of students’ money making the switch and unfortunately this hypothetical situation is a reality.
According to the Board of Directors at their May 27 meeting, moving the Greenroom downstairs in the JDUC beside the post office was the ideal solution. They believe the Greenroom won’t have problems in the lower traffic area because they sell used books, and students will visit the store no matter where it is.
Well, that logic works for the first two weeks of a term, but after that, the Greenroom will have the exact same problem attracting customers.
It also seems strange that this $20,000 move is happening only a year after the Greenroom and Tricolour Market were created, and at a time when the JDUC nears demolition.
So, if all of this just isn’t adding up, then congratulations. You caught on to the ulterior motive: The Queen’s Centre.
The construction of the $230 million project will begin this year. And, in a simplified sense, having real estate space in the JDUC guarantees real estate space in the Queen’s Centre.
The AMS is willing to incur steady and considerable losses in both these services—at students’ expense—as a means to an end in the Queen’s Centre.
The AMS bought the College Book Merchant two years ago when Sandra and Doug Sutcliffe were running it and losing money. They turned it into the Tricolour Market, offering a similar product line, in order to secure retail space in the Queen’s Centre.
The Greenroom-Tricolour switch may have more to do with opening up the JDUC leases with the hope that the AMS will gain more flexibility in the products they will be able to sell—like food—in the long term.
All of this time and money could be used to help the services develop a more concrete identity and begin to provide a service that actually fills a student need.
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