Maybe it’s the poor economy.  Maybe it’s just the changing times.  Maybe people just don’t like the place.  Whatever the reason, the local video store is closing.  My daughter rented some movies from there last weekend and there were no signs up.  Today, the day these movies are being returned, they have signs proclaiming that the store is closing.

I’m not real sure about how I feel about this exactly.  On one hand, I never cared for the place.  5 years ago, when I first came to this town, we had two video stores.  One was this crummy little hole in the wall with a pretty crummy selection.  However you could rend 5 movies for 5 days for 5 dollars.  Sometimes they had movie posters in a box you could buy for a quarter.  So we went there a lot.  The kids liked to get their stuff and I’d pick out a couple for me and my wife to watch.  The other store was larger and slightly pricier, but it wasn’t anything overly extravagant and wasn’t any sort of chain.

Then the Movie Gallery moved into town into the location where Hardees once was (Maybe it was a Burger King, I don’t remember).  This place reeked of Blockbuster.  While it’s not the same chain, I despise Blockbuster Video for many reasons and bad experiences.  In short, their selection of “library titles” sucked and their prices were too high.  But they got 20 of ever big new release in so you could always get a copy.  The middle of the road video store (not too fancy, not too crummy) went out of business almost immediately.  Oh well, I hardly went there anyway.

Then the cheapo store went under as well.

Now I was stuck paying too much for movie rentals at a lousy chain store carrying mostly new releases.  I went back to borrowing movies from my brother or watching them on TV again.  Or i just stopped all together.

Then, one day, the Redbox appeared.  I was wary of this device initially.  Who would want to rent movies from a vending machine?  Now I get most of my newer movies from the Redbox.

And so the Movie Gallery, which killed it’s two small town predecessors, was killed by the vending machine.  I can’t help but wonder why they don’t try harder to kill it.  They have a way better selection.  Also they could carry tons of backlog titles.  The key is prices.  i mentioned earlier that my daughter rented two movies.  It cost her 8 dollars for these two movies and she had them for 5 days.

Now, I’ll admit that I did not go into the store with her to pick them out or pay, so it’s possible she got suckered into the 5 night deal over 1 night,  But who needs a DVD for 5 nights?  Maybe the store can’t compete with a dollar a night rentals but maybe instead try 150 and bead the Redbox on volume and selection.  Offer some sort of bulk deal for multiple nights like the old Hole in the Wall did.  try SOMETHING.

But why should I be irritated if I didn’t care to shop there in the first place?  You see, that’s a whole different issue.  The previously mentioned Hole in the Wall store was in a small blue building that used to be some sort of gas station.  It’s been an empty eyesore across from the McDonald’s for 3-4 years now.

The other old video store almost faired better.  There were signs and promotion of some sort of Cafe opening up.  The supposed opening day came and went with no sign of any actual food or drink.  I passed by the other day and noticed the signage is all gone, it’s an empty husk with a “For Lease” sign in the window.  It sits across the street from another store that used to be the local pharmacy.  that pharmacy closed the exact same day the new Walgreens opened in town.  The place even sent out letters to it’s customers informing them that they could now get their medicine from Walgreens.

I hate Walgreens.  Not for closing the pharmacy but because the prices are too high and the selection is pretty meh.

I hate to sound like or feel like one of those nostalgic doofs who can’t stand progress and change but I’m getting tired of empty buildings all over from businesses killed by big chains or internet giants,  The empty buildings depress me a bit and make the whole town look crummy.

It’s not even a phenomenon limited to small towns like mine.  Even in the city where I work i see many empty unused stores and buildings.  Meanwhile some chain is building a new building in some location calculated for maximum marketability using a design intended to make the building familiar to everyone.everywhere.  Walgreens couldn’t open in some old video store or pharmacy building, they don’t LOOK like Walgreens (also both would be too small).  Instead they bulldoze a church and a building that had an existing business in it to make a new parking lot.