Editor:
As I work at a seniors facility and my own mother is 90, I feel it is finally time I responded on their behalf to a letter I read some time ago. It was from one of your readers about the new malls planned by the Tsawwassen First Nation.
This is partially because of a conversation I heard at a local store recently between a store owner and a customer. They were complaining that it would be disastrous to store owners in both Ladner and Tsawwassen when the malls are completed.
The letter mentioned seniors do not need the same amount of clothes as when they were working. Maybe not as many, but where I work, they are very conscious of how they look. Most of them come down to breakfast wearing nice clothes, with makeup on and nice jewelry.
We have shopping trips arranged for them on a weekly basis as most of them cannot get around themselves with walkers and wheelchairs and their families are busy working. They go to (dare I say it in South Delta?) Wal-Mart and love buying household items that are much cheaper than in Ladner and Tsawwassen.
Our suites have a kitchenette, bedroom and living area and are furnished by the tenants. Our seniors love buying new clothes. The ladies say it gives them a lift and makes them feel good.
My mother has always been very fashion conscious. She loves clothes and gets very frustrated with the lack of choice in Ladner and Tsawwassen. They are either too cheaply made or way too expensive and there is a very limited choice.
She still drives but we usually go together to Richmond as she finds the trip very tiring. It is ludicrous to say we have enough stores here. We do not. Fields has closed down but at least it was another choice, even though most of its clothes were cheaply made. At least it had some household items. The Bargain Shop is the same.
The little boutiques do not have the variety that a department store does, no matter what the store owners here think.
Our seniors are fed up of the lack of choice in Ladner and Tsawwassen. The seniors and I have lived in small communities in the past and we have seen Wal-Mart, Zellers, Home Depot, Sears and smaller boutique stores very close together and no one went out of business or closed up shop like they do here.
Pamela Simons
