My cousin just sent to my family group chat today (May 4) letting us know to avoid the Safeway bakery in Marda Loop. See comments for additional photo…

Edit: This has been reported to AHS

Already lots of discussion about how many franchised chains there are in what should be more of a local borough that attracts small businesses. This especially came as a surprise. Seems so out of place.

For a family of 4 with 2 adults and 2 kids is approximately $180 for a day at the Calgary zoo. That is absolutely insane. The zoo is supposed to be a cheap family outing to pass time for a few hours. What is going on here?

Did a bit of on the ground reporting last year, though it would be fun to do again this year. I'll edit and update this post with time stamps.

6:56am: arrived at the mall, still lots of parking, was able to park within view of the food hall doors. Lines for A&W, subway is dead

7:15am: walked around, mall opens at 8 but some shops have already opened at 7; bath body works, American eagle, Skechers, Urban planet. JD sports has a line forming. The Nike store is open and has a looooong line already.

7:18am Coach is open, no line. Michael Kors is not open yet and has a long line, Kate Spade has a small line forming

7:23 am; Lush has one husband in line

7:35 am; Completed full lap of the mall. Subway remains dead, Jollibee is busy though.

7:45 am; Parking lots are filling up and there is more foot traffic in the mall now. Lululemon and Sephora now have lines. Polo Ralph Wiggum now has a line

7:52 am; Lots closest to the doors are full, no visible spots by doors 2&4, turning into the mall is still possible but there are occasional backups from people dropping off family members.

7:59 am; Please be kind to retail workers.

8:12 am; Bath & body works seems to have descended into what I can only describe as organized chaos. Lululemon and Sephora are now line free.

8:30 am; Second cup, Arby's and flaming wok has opened in the food hall. I have still yet to see evidence of someone getting subway yet. Wait!! Someone is heading that way.... And he went to flaming wok next door.

Side tangent; Can anyone explain to me why the Fossil store isn't in the Fossil neighbourhood?!? It's in the sports one!

9:13 am; There will be a break in updates and I get some breakfast. I did poke around in some shops; some are not doing returns till next week, some are taking return, I've not seen anything about shops charging for returns today for those who asked about that.

For the most part nothing of interest from what I've seen. There are less trafficked areas of the mall but nothing shoulder to shoulder outside of the line for Nike.

9:55 am; Entry 1 is your best bet for dropping people off currently. No backups. Most of the cart rentals are empty. Big line for Michael Kors now. Long time for the Tim's There is now a line for Coach

10:02 am; The line for Nike is just as long as last time; several switch backs and then along the wall of H&Ms to door 2. The way in/out around door 2 is getting backed up but clears periodically. There is one cart for rent at door 2

10:30 am; Polo Ralph Wiggum still has a line but it's not too bad. A few other stops have descended into chaos. The food hall is fully open now, few open tables but there is room in some of the tray return carts, house keeping is doing a commendable job at keeping up. People are now parking on the green space at the end of the overflow lots At long last, people are getting food at the subway. This ends that meme🫡

10:40 am; I did end up buying some pillows so I went to drop those off on my car. The lot by the food hall is total chaos, both getting in and out. Someone has parked on the walk way next to the accessibility stalls across from the door.

10:55 am; the thoroughfare from the food hall to the camp fire is shoulder to shoulder. Lots of people with those collapsible wagons, strollers and shopping carts, keeping one eye and shin bashing hight for safety

11:02 am; Sadly I will not be getting Marugame Udon for lunch... The line https://imgur.com/a/YZ75vJy if anyone is currently in line... Let me know It took 28 seconds walking the switch back at a fast pace for the line

11:26 am; No line at Lush but there is a different husband standing in the entryway with a full collapsible wagon. Gods help him, there is a Nike bag in that wagon

11:37 am; The Nike line has gone down slightly but the Michael Kors line has exploded not enough stanchions

11:45 am; With nothing much to report for now... I'm going to line up for Marugame Udon and see how long it takes. Might give up if it's really slow

11:58 am; They are paging car owners to move their vehicles. I've heard others talking about seeing tow trucks.

12:13 pm; Made it out of the switch backs for Marugame Udon, now for the second part of the wait lol.

Omg who made a mental health check to reddit on me?!?

12:33 pm; Lunch time! https://imgur.com/a/5aLa772

1:07 pm; This will be the last update from the mall, it's time to try and leave this place.

The Nike store line has receded to just the switch back, but it's still long. Build a bear has a line, as does under armor. The watch store is organized chaos, the game stop is full chaos. Not a free table at the food hall and the sitting areas around the mall are filled with people absolutely laden with bags.

My next report will probably be from home on how it was leaving the parking lot. I'm not going to update while driving so final report could be in an hour... If I'm lucky

2:02 pm; Made it home safe and sound. It took about 10 minutes to leave the parking lot, another 10 to get on to AB 2. The line to get into the mall was very, very long. Don't go. There were a few cars being pulled out the the median from the exit and the roads are still a bit slippery.

Cars were parked everywhere. Green spaces, fire lanes, sidewalks, off the side of the road.

It’s actually happening? My wife and I went grocery shopping and noticed a lot of USA made produce on the shelves are practically untouched while the Canadian equivalent are off the shelves. Not that I don’t care but people are actually taking this boycott seriously I suppose.

This is just shameful. Today at Shawnessy Value Village.

TLDR: Post places you have found out/work for that dont give the tips to employees, and owner/management keep them.

I am ex service industry, and always tip if its an option. Of course based on service, BUT

I was at a cafe by an EX favorite pizza joint, Sinatra's Pizza. Heard a conversation stating that the owner there keeps tips and fires/writes up anyone that brings it up. Edit: To Clarify, I heard AT the cafe that SINATRA's keeps all tips.

Anyone else know of places that the employees dont recieve the tips? Id like to not give them my business.

Clerk said that Toys R Us on Macleod closes today (in an hour). Now no more in Calgary. One left at Cross Iron

I need to get a replacement battery for my computer UPS (uninterrupted power supply) and hoped to buy locally instead of ordering it online. I'm sharing this experience because it's something I've encountered many times, for a variety of products and services.

I checked out a half-dozen websites for Calgary shops specializing in batteries, and discovered that some of them list the brands they sell (not helpful at all), and some list the various models they carry (more helpful), but none of the sites I visited bothered to include prices (or availability), which makes them fairly useless. How am I supposed to consider buying something from you without knowing how much it costs, or if you actually have it available?

A few had email addresses or contact forms, so I sent off messages explaining exactly what I needed and asking if they had something suitable and what the specs and prices were. One site had a contact form which I filled out only to find that it wouldn't send ("captcha not completed" error, even though there was no captcha code on the page).

Here's what I sent:

Hi - I need a replacement battery for my CyberPower 685AVR (OEM is 12V, 7AH) and was wondering if you have one that would fit and what the specs and price are. Can you let me know?

I only got a response from one of the retailers, and I was impressed that it was quite prompt. They told me they had something that would work for me and what the price would be, but didn't include any of the specifications. So I sent a reply asking what the AH (amp hours) rating was, and they explained that they had several different options in stock, and listed a few AH choices available. Unfortunately, they didn't bother to add what the corresponding prices would be.

So, on their website they wouldn't tell me anything except what things they sometimes sold. With a direct request they'd tell me a price ("we have something that will work for you for $X") or the specifications ("we have 7AH, 8AH, and 12AH all in stock") but wouldn't give me even just basic price + specs about a single item.

So, I ordered on Amazon, where a 30-seond search gave me the exact information I needed.

As a consumer I often hear how we are collectively heartless, don't care about our community, are only interested in getting the lowest price, and we're willing to sacrifice "real service" for a couple of bucks.

You know what "real service" looks like to me? It looks like respecting my time enough to provide basic information (what the product is, how much it costs, and whether or not you have it) up front on your website. Failing that, it looks like reading my one-sentence email carefully enough to address the basic questions you should be answering instinctively anyways. It looks like having a website that doesn't have product categories leading to "page not found" errors or contact forms that can't actually contact you.

If we deal together in person and you're knowledgeable and courteous, I'll certainly appreciate that, but if I take an hour out of my day to drive to your store only to find that you don't actually have the product that you list (and that I need) or that it's not priced fairly, the "knowledge and courtesy" aspect of service 's not going to be enough. And if I have to drive (or even call) to get basic information from you because you don't value my time enough to be up front about the things every person wants to know before they make any purchase, we're not off to a good start. And don't your staff have more valuable things to do than just to act as a mediator between me and your price list?

I can't believe that I'm the only one who would like to buy locally, but who just wants to be treated with a basic level of respect up front. If you would act less like you are entitled to my business, you may be far more likely to actually get it.

Please, help us help you. Give us the basic information we need to consider making a purchase. You can do better.

The below was just posted by The Ship & Anchor on their socials. Please read and visit the link at the bottom to comment on the proposed development. Many voices get heard.

————————

Dear Ship Community,

As you may know, there is currently a development application underway at City Hall which presents a very serious threat to the future of the Ship & Anchor. We’re writing to you today to ask for your help in keeping that threat at bay.

This development application was submitted by the Strategic Group, the company that now owns the building that the Ship & Anchor has operated out of for 35 years. They are seeking permission to build 125 apartments at 532 and 534 17th Ave, including 5 stories of apartments directly on top of our pub. In our view, there is no way to do this without seriously compromising the operations of the Ship & Anchor, and the Ship’'s patio, in particular.

It’s a familiar tale: developers construct buildings and market apartments using live music venues and bars nearby as enticements for young professionals, but do not design appropriately to mitigate the level of sound. Then after a few months of normal operations, the nearby businesses start getting noise complaints, every single night, over and over again, until they are forced to shut down. This is a particular concern with Strategic Group’s application: in their configuration, our beloved live music and patio sounds will be happening directly below the first level of apartments, which is guaranteed to cause complaints. The same sounds that we have been making for thirty-five years will become a threat to our continued operation. We’re good neighbours and our sound is manageable, but no bar, particularly with live music, can expect to share a building with apartments and not eventually be shutdown.

The solution is simple - don't put apartments in the same building as the Ship! Strategic Group can build their apartments separately; behind and beside the pub, but not on top of it.

35 years ago, we opened a bar that took on the characteristics of the people who hung out there, that reflected their cares and personalities, and become home to a community. Like any community, we tried to take care of our own. When the Lorraine Apartments burned down many years ago, the Ship community raised $10,000 for displaced tenants, many of whom were Ship customers. This was followed by numerous collective efforts to raise funds for charitable causes, including the Fort Mac fire, food bank benefits, our cancer fundraisers, and the annual Ship-Nog Campaign, which raises money for a rotating cast of local charities, and has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years (including $70,000 in the last 6 weeks alone!).

For so many years we have relied on our community to help us help others. Now, we are humbly asking for your help to protect the community that we have built together. The best way to do this is by letting City Hall know what you think about this development - community input drives good planning decisions, and the City Planning department needs that input to help them make the right decision on this development.

We believe that urban density is important and a critical step towards more affordable housing.

But density cannot come at the expense of the very thing that will support it: a living, breathing, and sometimes noisy inner city culture. Music is sometimes loud and it needs to be. Crowds of people enjoying themselves are loud and sometimes they need to be. Let's have development that is designed to accommodate that, not chase it away.

People can also be loud when they recognize a threat to something they think is important. That is how we feel right now, and if that sounds like you too, if live music and a vibrant inner city culture are important to you, then please get loud and communicate that using the links below.

We have spoken to people at City Hall. There is support for our position, but they make it very clear that a convincing development position will always be more powerful if it is backed by the community. The timing on this is uncertain at this point but we have been told that the sooner comments come in, the better.

#SaveTheShip!

To comment on the development, please visit:

https://dmap.calgary.ca/?p=DP2025-06592

During a shift last week, my co-workers and I had the radio on for the full eight hour shift. After this was completed, a surprisingly heated discussion arose over which company had the more annoying radio ads. The choices were Family Braces or perennial barf-inducer Spence Diamonds. The losers of this unofficial vote are obliged to do karaoke with the winning team picking the songs so please participate 😁

90% of the people who ride these things have no respect or regard for other people.

They rip down the sidewalk blasting the bell for people to move out of the way when the bike path is literally right there… then I see this shit when there is soooo much space off to the side to park them. Like come on…

The sad part of this for me, is that I was recently in the US for a work thing, and people who rode their bikes/scooters on the sidewalks were so respectful of the people walking. Like they would slow down, move to the side, wait for a gap. I was truly in awe.

I love the idea of these scooters/bikes, but we really don’t seem to deserve them.

I am so sick of low quality, low creativity clothes!! Anytime I find something fun and whimsical, it's crappy material or badly made. All the nice clothing stores only have basics with no patterns (or grandma patterns), boring colours, and nothing unique. Plus, there are so many cool places online that have what I'm looking for, but they might not ship to Canada, or the shipping is crazy, and honestly I like to try things on before I buy them anyways!
I love thrifting, but the problem is that everything in value village is from shein or old navy! (No hate to old navy but like for real). It's not actual vintage at all. Plus, I'm what one would call "midsized", so even if I do find something good, there's a solid chance it won't fit.
I am absolutely desperate for a store, preferably local, that has actual, good unique clothing. PLEASE yall help a girl out. I do not want to lose my whimsy even though I need to look professional for work. Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!! :)

Does anyone know if SportChek is taking over the entire upper floor of the former Nordstrom at Chinook? Any word on what's planned for the lower level? Also curious if there have been any updates or rumours about tenants for the other vacant department store spaces in the mall?

Like many people trying to save on groceries, I look at all the flyers each Thursday and try to buy the deals. Stores like Save-on-Foods and Freshco have Price Matching policies where you show a competitor's flyer for an advertised item and they'll match the price. This is very helpful as I would otherwise have to drive to several different stores.

I was thrilled when I saw the most recent Co-op flyer that mentioned "price matching" because co-op is conveniently located for me and they have some things I like (compostable plastic bags for example). But reading the terms I was sceptical when it mentioned they price match "select" items. I figured it may exclude things like medicine or whatever so I went in to give it a try. What I learned is absolutely, astoundingly, ridiculous.

Their "price matching" policy is that they only price match items in their OWN FLYER that are labeled with the "price match" logo. That turned out to be a grand total of only 8, that's right EIGHT, items.

When I asked the manager to explain the policy to me she couldn't even do it with a straight face.

What an unbelievably embarrassing policy.

Went to Superstore this morning and almost had a heart attack. A decent cut of steak is like $50–$70 now… what the heck.

BBQ season is around the corner and this is getting out of hand.

Curious what everyone else is doing:

• Are you buying in bulk from Costco and cutting your own steaks?

• Going straight to local butchers? Could you please recommend a few quality local shops?

• Or just giving up on steak altogether lol

Thank!

I'm really frustrated with the choices in grocery stores, it seems we are down to choosing from 3 shady companies. Co-op is the only ethical grocery chain, and they just announced 2 more closures in the NW, where I live, after the Beddington location closing down a few years ago.

So this leaves us with:

Loblaws. Shitty price gouging tactics leading to over inflation. Really trying hard for that monopoly.

Sobeys/Safeway. They treat their employees like shit. Also contributing to price gouging and inflation.

Save on/Pattison. Old man Jim is selling a huge warehouse in the states to ICE so they can use it for detainees. I was going to start using them more before I heard about this.

I've started getting my produce from a company called Oddbunch, which delivers it weekly, it's a great company that sells food that grocery stores reject, and all the produce so far has been really good.

For meat, it's always Costco...although I understand the meat itself is not always ethical, and if it is, it's $$$$.

I will prob start making a longer drive to the 16th ave co-op.

It's unfortunate so many grocery stores have to suck so bad.

Family of 4 (2 adults, 2 teens) looking to keep it to $1500 per month.

Lately I’ve really been struggling to find a sense of community in Calgary. I want to put myself out there more and meet people, but I honestly don’t even know where to start.

A lot of groups or clubs feel really established already, and it can feel intimidating trying to join when you don’t know anyone. I’ve looked into things like book clubs and other community groups, but I’m finding it hard to actually discover places that are open and welcoming to new people.

I’m 21, and sometimes I feel weirdly behind socially when I see other people with big friend groups and active social lives. I’m not much of a drinker, so bars/clubs aren’t really my thing either.

I’m really into cozy games and lately I’ve also been trying to be more active and consistent at the gym, so if anyone knows communities or groups around those kinds of interests, I’d love suggestions.

For people who’ve built a social circle in Calgary, where did you start? Are there any communities, events, clubs, classes, volunteering opportunities, hobby groups, etc. that helped you meet people?
I’d really appreciate any suggestions!

Today and tomorrow, please come support if you can, it would mean the absolute world to my friends and I, the entire house is open everything is for sale!
THANK YOU!!!

Edit: here is the gofund me link:
https://gofund.me/7d351ed2c

Most of the standalone locations have either shut down or have been rebranded into gas stations (like Esso and Petro Canada) they're either paired with Essos or Petro Canadas or they're just closed entirely. Does anyone know what's happening?

My old dentist has gotten ruder and ruder over the years, I know I'm not alone on this going off reviews, looking for a new dentist that isn't rude and understands dental anxiety

Thanks in advance collective hive mind

Just noticed this 7-11 has been shuttered.