Toronto hardware store open for nearly 90 years says it could be forced to close by vandalism

A hardware store that has been a fixture in Toronto's Church and Wellesley neighbourhood for years says it may be forced to close its doors due to repeated acts of vandalism.

Steve Dawson, owner of Dudley's Hardware Paint & Decor, said on Thursday he is seriously considering closing the store, saying items have been stolen, staff have been intimidated and spat at, and some have been injured in physical altercations. 

The store, in operation since 1934, is supposed to celebrate its 90th birthday next year.

Dawson announced in a Facebook post on Sunday that he was closing the store for good, but an outpouring of support from the local community since has prompted him to reconsider. But he says, the neighbourhood needs to be made safer and he is still debating what to do.

"Over the last five years, my front windows have been smashed 14 times, this year alone four times. As a small independent business, I cannot keep buying glass," Dawson told CBC Toronto. "My staff does not feel safe."

Dawson said the state of the neighbourhood has brought him to this point. The store is near Barbara Hall Park and The 519 community centre. Drug use outside the centre and in the park and the behaviour that follows is the problem, he said.

"Something has got to give," he said. "It's not an issue of homelessness. It's a lack of resources for mental health and drug addiction. And harm reduction is not working," he said.

"Every time that door buzzer goes off at my front door, the hair on our necks stand up. We don't know what we're going to deal with."

Curran Stikuts, director of advocacy and strategic communications for The 519, said he empathizes with Dawson but said the community centre doesn't have the resources to address the problems on its own.

"We're all struggling with the best way to move forward in terms of creating a healthier, more vibrant neighbourhood, where everybody feels welcome and safe and able to be who they are," he said.

"It really needs to be not just us, but a whole of community, government and neighborhood approach. Really, what we're dealing with is a severe lack of options for folks who are underhoused, for folks struggling with mental health and drug use issues."

Stikuts said governments also need to be accountable for their role in creating these crises.

"The issues that we're seeing in the Church-Wellesley neighborhood are broadly representative of what happens when we have a deep under-investment in social services, housing, addiction and mental health over the past decades," he said.

"What we're seeing now is we're reaping the rewards of that under-investment and it's playing out in really challenging ways in our communities, in our parks and in our neighbourhoods," he said.