Front Page newsstand, an Edmonton fixture, to close up shop

The Front Page newsstand in Edmonton is to close, permanently, on July 19 after 15 years of business, leaving only one independent magazine source in the city. According to a story in the Edmonton Journal,sales were better than ever, but increasing downtown rent, soaring utility costs and staffing uncertainty convinced owner Brent Johnson to make the difficult decision.

"The vast majority of our customers are regulars," he said. "There is a lot of disappointment from them."

After Front Page closes, the story said, Hub Cigar and Newstand, just off Gateway Boulevard and Whyte Avenue, will be the only independent magazine store in the city. This is the latest in what looks like a lamentable trend in the disappearance of dedicated independent newsstands in major Canadian cities. Readers will recall the closure of the Lichtman's News chain in Toronto and recent posts about the end of the Magpie Magazine Gallery in Vancouver and Black Cat International in Sudbury.

The reason such newsstands are critical to the Canadian magazine industry is that they will often stock and promote smaller and specialized titles that cannot get space in Indigo. The Front Page carried 5,000 different titles.