Marché Richelieu feels pinch of traffic jams, public market
Owner urges town council to find solutions to woes that hurt revenue
Grocer Bruno Richard said it is increasingly difficult to keep his family-run grocery story — the only food retailer in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue — up and running. If it’s not a traffic jam, then it’s the public market.
Richard made an appeal to Ste Anne municipal council to help come up with solutions to two problems he says are eating away at revenues at Marché Richelieu J. Raymond Richard.
“For a grocery store, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. are peak hours,” Richard said Monday. “People are heading home at the end of the day. They stop in to buy something for supper. But that’s happening less and less at Marché Richelieu.”
Traffic heading home to Pincourt and Île-Perrot and students and staff from Macdonald High School, John Abbott College and McGill University’s Macdonald Campus heading out at the end of the day jam the street backing the grocery store making it difficult for potential customers to park and shop.
“I had a friend tell me recently that he had planned to stop by the store on his way home to say hello and pick up a barbecue chicken,” Richard said. “But he sat in traffic for 45 minutes.”
Richard suggested a way to ease traffic flow would be to lengthen the time the traffic light near Highway 20 is green, but director general Martin Bonhomme said that increasing the duration of the green light would do little to ease a traffic crunch coming from multiple directions.
Councillor Ryan Young suggested flashing lights for the duration of the rush hour, but said that would only be a short-term solution.
“What really needs to be done to address the problem in the long term is to appeal to higher government to fund the building of an exit and overpass off John Abbott College grounds,” Ryan said. “That would relieve a lot of the traffic problems, but it is also a very expensive option.”
The traffic crunch during the academic year is one problem. Then, after school shuts down for the summer, the public market sets up shop near the town’s boardwalk every Saturday for six months.
“Our store sells Quebec produce, just like the market does,” Richard said. “Our prices are competitive. But one stall at the public market will sell more corn in five hours than I sell in two weeks. That hurts.”
Richard said he has no problem with Marché Ste-Anne’s organizers or with the concept of a public market selling mostly organic produce, he just wished they could somehow join forces.
He toyed with the idea of renting a table at the market to remind shoppers that Marché Richelieu is just up the road. But he changed his mind at the last minute after analyzing the cost of renting the table and paying two full-time employees to staff the table.
“Maybe the market could use the Centre Harpell parking lot right beside us,” Richard said. “That way we could set up our own table on our property and still be part of the gang.”
Young said it would be hard sell to relocate the market from its picturesque location on the waterfront.
“I love Marché Richelieu. I would like to find a way for the store and the farmers to work together someone,” Ryan said. “Perhaps the farms could become suppliers for the store.”