Ontario, Canada Recollections

Recollections (1990s, Early 2000s)

During the 1990s and into the early 2000s, I remember there being a movie and video game rental store called “Video Shop” at 230 McCurdy Dr., in Amherstburg, Ontario.

The building was rectangular, with the bulk of it being one storey, although I think the north portion of the building had a second storey. The rental store would have used most, if not all, of the first storey. I’m not sure what might have been in the second storey.

A paved driveway and parking lot that opened onto McCurdy Dr. along most of the south edge of the lot surrounded the building, making it possible to drive completely around the structure. I remember there being some vehicle parking spots directly south of the building, between the structure and McCurdy Dr., and possibly some along the sides.

On the exterior of the east wall of the building, near the southeast corner, there was a slot for returning rented items. Due to the driveway and parking lot surrounding the building, when driving in a vehicle it was possible to pull in to the east side of the parking lot from McCurdy Dr., drive up alongside the east wall of the building near the return slot, stop and drop off rented items without getting out of the vehicle, drive around the north end of the building, and then continue along the west side of the parking lot back to McCurdy Dr., making returns fast and convenient.

The front entrance/exit was in the middle of the south wall, facing McCurdy Dr. There were two single doors next to each other, one to the west, and one to the east. The door to the west was for entering the store, and the door to the east was for exiting. Inside each door there was a small, enclosed, rectangular lobby area, but I can’t remember if they were connected in the middle at all. From the entrance door’s lobby, one would turn to the left (west) and continue through another door to reach the main customer-accessible area of the store.

The bulk of the main area was open, and more-or-less rectangular in shape, with a small rectangular room at the northeast corner that somewhat jutted out into the main area. I think that there was another room at the southeast corner of the building, near the main exit, that connected to the external return slot within the east wall of the building.

I recall there being taller shelving units running along the west, north, and east walls. Within the middle of the store, there were perhaps five or six rows of double-sided shelving units running north-south, thus creating some north-south aisles between them. These inner shelving units may have been shorter than the ones around the edges of the store.

At the south end of the store, immediately north of the north wall of the entrance/exit lobby area, was the front counter. I remember the counter having a rectangular C-shape, with it being continuous along the shorter west and longer north sides, and I believe having a gap within the east side for staff access. The staff behind the counter would face north, and be able to see almost the entire shelving area. I think there was a small open area just north of the counter, where customers could queue up.

Along the west side of the front counter, I remember there being a cinema-style commercial popcorn machine. Tubular-shaped plastic bags filled with popcorn, perhaps a couple of feet in length, were placed on the counter and available for sale. This popcorn tasted excellent. I don’t think that any popcorn was given out for free in small paper bags to customers browsing the shop, like I recall Jumbo Video in Windsor doing at the time.

To exit the store, one would proceed along the east side of the counter, through a short hallway running south past the room connecting to the exterior return slot. I think there was an anti-theft detector within this exit path. Once at the end of the hallway (i.e., at the front wall of the store), the customer would turn to the right (west), go through a door into the small exit lobby area, and then head south out the exit door leading outside.

I remember the rental items primarily being VHS tapes or home video game cartridges/discs.

In terms of video games, I recall renting Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and Nintendo 64 (N64) cartridges from there. Sega Genesis, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Game Boy, and Sega Game Gear games may also have been available. If I’m not mistaken, a small number of video game consoles and accessories (such as Game Genie and GameShark devices, and specialized controllers) may have been rentable, as well.

I don’t recall seeing more obscure formats like Betamax or LaserDisc available there, at least during the 1990s and early 2000s. I also don’t recall DVD-Video discs being available for rent, either, although it was still a relatively new format at the time.

The items available for rent were stored on the shelves, in durable protective plastic cases. The decorative cardboard sleeve/box that the item originally came in, I believe encased in a thin transparent protective plastic case, was placed in front of those. To rent an item, the customer would simply take the item in its protective case off of the shelf, and eventually bring it to the front desk. If an item was already rented out to another customer, it wouldn’t be on the shelf, but the sleeve/box would still indicate that it might be available in the future. I remember there typically being only one copy of each movie or game available, at least for older items.

I believe that new releases were placed on the shelves toward the southwest corner of the shop, probably to make them more immediately visible to customers coming in through the entrance. I think that older blockbuster movies were on the shelves toward the northwest and north, with dramas, comedies, documentaries, animated films, and some other genres of movies being on the interior shelves towards the west. The video games were near the middle of the store, possibly to put them directly north of the counter where they could be more closely monitored by staff (at the time, video games were quite expensive to buy compared to most VHS tapes). I recall at least science fiction and horror films, and possibly TV shows/series, being to the east of the video games. I think the shelves toward the southeast primarily held various sports and professional wrestling videos.

In terms of the selection and the variety of content that was available, I remember it being decent, considering the size of the store. A wide variety of genres were covered, and both older and newer movies and games were available.

After a customer selected the item or items to be rented, it/they would be brought to the front desk. I believe that a computer system of some sort, along with a barcode scanner, was used to track rentals. There weren’t membership cards like some other rental stores had, at least as far as I can remember. I think the staff would just ask for the customer’s phone number, address, or name to access the relevant account on the computer.

I believe that the rentals were for a single day, and I’m pretty sure that there were late fees for items that weren’t returned to the store in time. I can’t remember the typical cost of a rental, nor how much the late fees might have been, however. My recollection is that it was cheap enough to be significantly less than buying a VHS tape or video game cartridge outright, but also expensive enough to encourage that the rented item be watched and returned promptly. It was definitely a good way to watch a movie that one only wanted to see once, or to try out a video game before buying a copy.

I don’t really remember much about the staff or management, and I’m not sure who owned the store.

The store eventually closed, although I can’t recall exactly when. I suspect that it was sometime around the mid 2000s. The latest I recall going to the store was probably around 2002 or so.

Other Information

The store is mentioned on page 57 of the “Town Of Amherstburg, Ontario Business Directory 2003 - 2004” that is dated “April 17, 2003”. The listed contact is “Kathy Laur”.

Google Street View imagery from July 2009 shows the building as being seemingly unoccupied and up for sale. It still looks a lot like I remember it did when the video rental store was operating there. The return slot on the east wall appears to have been removed, however. (Note that some of the July 2009 imagery of the building exhibits visual distortions.)

The building appears to be unoccupied and still up for sale in the June 2012 Google Street View imagery, although by May 2014 the signs on the building suggest that “The Mattress Depot” and “Security ONE Alarm Systems” were using it then.

By November 2023, the Google Street View imagery shows some renovations as having been done to the front of the building, and “Hogarth Hermiston Severs LLP” appear to be using it. The footer of the 2017-05-17 archived version of their website shows their “Amherstburg Office” as being at “230 McCurdy Dr. Amherstburg, ON N9V 3V1”.