A staple of the Rideau Street corridor, Steve's Music Store, is packing up and moving out after 42 years in business. The store will not be closing, its manager says, but rather moving to a new location that is yet unannounced. Speaking on Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron Dan Sauvé says it was a difficult decision to leave what has been the store's home for so long.
"We've been here for 42 years, and Steve's family has roots on Rideau Street going back close to a century," he said. "Rideau's gone through a lot of things and challenges over the last decade and a half and at one point we just went, 'It's not feasible for us to stay here,' so we started just looking at other options." He says several factors led to management deciding it was time to find a new location.
"We're in a particular spot because we got a little bit sandwiched between a safe consumption site and a methadone clinic, which, in and of itself, is not a problem, but a lot of the clientele that visit either one of those centres, they get preyed upon basically by criminal elements in the city, and that's where it became a problem for us," he said. "Either through drug dealers or thieves, that kind of stuff, it became really kind of untenable to manage that, from a staffing perspective. Everybody was stressed out at work because of it.
" Sauvé said the crime in the area led to the store locking its doors and requiring patrons to buzz in to shop, a recommendation from Ottawa police. "We were.
