Photo Service on Notre-Dame is going to close after 89 years in the business, the owner blaming bike paths and lack of parking for the decline in custom.
Updates from November, 2025 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Projet and Ensemble are each asking for four recounts of results in the recent election. Two Ensemble councillors lost by 6 votes each, although the party is also contesting a result involving a loss by 300 votes, which is a bit of a stretch.
Ian
I think they should fight it out with oversized hammers, dressed as clowns.
Nicholas
Only way 300 votes change is if there was some transcription error, which would normally be caught by the end of validation. Even with that many rejected ballots, the error rate is not that low, and in municipals, where there are many ballots for many positions, people often only vote for one so there are more rejected ballots for borough-level positions (if you only care about mayor you still get all the ballots, while at federal if you don’t care about a race you just don’t show up). The other contests are plausible to change, but as the article notes, last time none changed, so it really has to be close, like single digits or slightly higher.
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Kate
Daniel Renaud tells one of his lurid tales, this one about the clan Lopez, which is alleged to have dealt a lot of drugs from bars it owns in Ahuntsic and Montreal North, and how the RCMP spun a web around them to trap them. But no charges have yet been brought.
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Kate
Video link for Tuesday’s Remembrance Day ceremony in Montreal.
Also, a link to the federal observance in Ottawa.
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Kate
The random choice was made Monday morning in Montreal East by a draw from a ballot box containing five ballots each for the tied winners for a council seat.
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Kate
TVA leans hard on the idea that the STM’s workers have working conditions that others can only dream of, clearly an attempt to stoke resentment among its readers.
Adding: TVA also emphasizes the fears of retailers that the strike will blight their Black Friday sales, which come late this year – November 28. To which I would say: we don’t have Black Friday in Canada, since it only exists as the day after American Thanksgiving, which we don’t have either. People here don’t have that Friday off to rush out to shop, so what’s the fuss?
If we do have Black Friday, it’s online sales, not massive shopping at physical stores.
steph
This manufactured consent is tiresome. It worries me that the relentless anti-union attacks is actually working.
All those temporarily embarrassed millionaires need to disconnect from their social media and get a more honest reading of where our society is headed.
Jim
Manufactured content is tiresome indeed. It’s not exclusive to one side or another. The tactic is effective in our current environment. It’s one of the reasons I love this blog. Even though I may not agree with all of you, it still looks like the most ‘source of truth’ about our city i can find these days.
Kate
Thank you, Jim. That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said about it.
JP
Black Friday might not be what it is in the U.S….but it’s not negligible for stores here either. I’ve gone out on the Friday and even taken the day off intentionally. That’s not to say I don’t support the STM strike, I do.
Ian
When Black Friday started catching on here, I was working in the garment industry still, which is very affected by this sales cycle. We kept seeing out fall catalogue deadline pushed further forward every year until finally our styles for Christmas had to be ready by July at the VERY latest. Trade shows pushed a lot of that as the manufacturers first to deliver saw bigger orders. I began to notice it coming in through various other brick and mortar retailers locally and I honestly think it wasn’t so much the pressure from online US sales but manufacturers switching up their sales cycle to match the dominant consumer pattern. There’s 10x the population in the US and their economy is very, very driven by consumer purchases – it’s part of why their clothing is so inexpensive and cheaply made, you’re expected to buy into the fast fashion cycle. That other consumer goods follow the cycle is no surprise, and since the Canadian manufacturers are so tied into the American cycle it should be no surprise to see our retailers following the American example, in part due to Canadian manufacturer pressure.
I think consumers WERE happy with Boxing Day but that served a very different purpose – inventory reduction at the end of season, not sales boost to make up for the down season.
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Kate
The Bell Centre was full of unhappy doctors Sunday – 12,000 of them according to CTV – protesting the CAQ’s law changing their work and pay conditions.
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Kate
The Samuel-De Champlain bridge, new six years ago, is already rusting because the contractor didn’t seal the joints properly.
MarcG
Not sure if this makes me feel comforted or despairing relating to my own experiences with incompetent, shoddy work done by contractors.
Kate
You’re not even required by law to accept the lowest bid, though.
Joey
Gotta read to the very end to find out that the cost of repairing the rust is covered by the long-term maintenance contract: “Martin Chamberland assure que les contribuables n’auront rien à payer pour la mise à niveau du pont Samuel-De Champlain. Le projet de remplacement et l’entretien de la structure s’inscrivent dans un partenariat public-privé entre le gouvernement canadien et les membres du consortium.”
Kate
Thank you, Joey.
It’s not cheering to read that the bridge needs a “mise à niveau” a mere six years after it opened, though. Advances in materials technology should have made that bridge tougher than the Victoria.
jeather
When the Victoria was built, there was less detailed knowledge and less computing power, so it (like most things) was overbuilt a lot just in case, which is why it’s so much tougher than newer bridges.
MarcG
It’s not rare to see repairs being done on new buildings only a few years after they’re built. I’m not sure if this is a new phenomenon but my sad middle-aged brain sure likes to think it’s because the world has turned into a big dollar store.
Blork
I really hope this is not as catastrophic as it might seem. As MarcG says, repairs on a new bridge are not unusual, although the narrative of “didn’t use the right sealant” could spin into a total disaster story.
Personally, I love that bridge and I am in awe of it every time I see it. I cycled across it a couple of weeks ago and it was better (for me) than spending a day at an amusement park. The view under the bridge from the Petite Voie du Fleuve bike path or from Nun’s Island is swoon-worthy (if you’re a bridge fan, like I am).
DeWolf
@Kate It was a federal project so as far as I can tell, they had no legal requirement to accept the lowest bid.
Kate
Didn’t know that. Thanks, DeWolf.
Blork 19:07 on 2025-11-10 Permalink
Oh FFS. It’s a photography store and hardly anyone spends money on photography anymore. Think that might have something to do with it?
Still, it’s a sad announcement. They were my go-to store back when I used to spend money on photography. I still do, somewhat, but I confess I haven’t bought anything there in a few years. (About the only thing I spend money on these days is printer ink and photo paper, and they didn’t reliably carry the ink I need and buying paper was always a bit of a crapshoot in terms of what they had in stock. Online is way easier for those things.)
I think they made most of their money from renting stuff to pro photographers and providing pro services. Not much there for regular schmucks like me who doesn’t spend much.
Ian 19:38 on 2025-11-10 Permalink
i do like Photo Service, but bike paths?
I mean, parking I can kind of understand, it’s a specialized store, people come from all over, and they even do equipment rental as Blork points out so you would want truck or van access… but even so.
FWIW they have a ton of digital equipment and all the stuff you might need for pro shoots like lights and scrims and diffusers etc but yeah.
I will miss being able to rent really nice cameras I could never afford but admittedly it’s been over two years since I’ve even done that.
Blork 19:59 on 2025-11-10 Permalink
I wonder if Gosselin’s move to Ste-C and Bleury a few years ago contributed to PS’s decline. Same kind of outfit, easier to get to…
DeWolf 20:03 on 2025-11-10 Permalink
The little jab at bike paths and parking is pretty tiresome, given that there’s no bike path on Notre-Dame and many thousands of parking spaces within a very short walk.
Luckily the neon sign has heritage protection so it will stay put even after the business goes under. I’m not sure who would pay for maintenace, though, which means it might be at risk of going dark in the future.
Annette 03:00 on 2025-11-11 Permalink
I never forgave them for putting an unremovable, unnecessary ‘Photo Service’ sticker on an heirloom camera lens I brought them for repair. My punishment for bringing it by bicycle, I guess.
MarcG 10:40 on 2025-11-11 Permalink
Annette: I’ve found that pretty much any sticker residue can be removed with one product or another… although the process might be challenging if the thing it’s stuck to is sensitive or precious.
Ian 08:50 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
When my kids went through their sticker phase I found olive oil and q-tips to be the only generally effective way to get off the residue, then a very gentle soap will wash off the oil. With camera equipment I might be more inclined to use sewing machine oil but definitely gentle scrubbing with a cotton swab.
Joey 10:10 on 2025-11-12 Permalink
Baby oil often works, goo-gone too. This is really what, first, reddit and second, gen AI, was built for…