A long-time entertainment staple in Ladner Village will soon be closing up shop.
After more than 30 years in business, Videoland will close its doors at the end of January.
"We've had more support from the community than any video store anywhere that I know of," said Phil Davie, who has owned the store with wife Michele since 1994.
"We really do thank our community for supporting us."
Movie rental stores like Videoland are few and far between these days and many of those left cater to a niche market. Davie said that, as far as he knows,
Ladner Videoland is the last video rental store between south Vancouver and White Rock.
The couple closed the Tsawwassen Videoland in May, although both stores outlived local Blockbuster and Rogers Video stores, both of which shut down a few years back.
While the business is still there for the time being, Davie said the writing is on the wall and the industry is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
"It's like a way of getting together that's fading with the higher level of communication," he said.
The entertainment industry, and how and what people access, has evolved over time, he said. Years ago, it was common to see families or groups of friends get together to head to the video store to peruse the latest releases, or old favourites, and pick out a few flicks to watch together. Today, movies can be downloaded or purchased without leaving the house. Davie said the best years for the DVD and video rental market were 2005 to 2007, but things started going downhill in 2008 when cable companies began offering customers free PVRs.
He said there was a hope the introduction of Blu-ray might boost the industry, but that never materialized.
In the early 2000s, when people started getting rid of their VCRs they lost the ability to record TV shows. The advent of the PVR brought back, and improved, that ability and,
Davie said, people now more readily turn to their PVRs for their entertainment fix - catching up on missed shows.
"The movie watchers have dropped off tremendously," he said.
Davie estimates movie studios alone have lost around $18 billion, and that doesn't include the quickly dwindling number of video rental stores closing shop.
"The industry just evaporated," he said.
With the store's lease up in January, Davie said it was a logical time to close.
The store is still doing rentals until after Christmas, and all video games and movies, except new releases, are also available for purchase. New releases will be available to purchase in January.
