‘End of an era’: Clare and Lobster Bay Shoppers cease operations | CBC News
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The Clare Shopper and the Lobster Bay Shopper were advertising staples in southwest Nova Scotia for decades, reaching 30,000 homes and businesses every two weeks.
But not any longer.
The modern landscape — marked by soaring costs, the internet, impacts of COVID-19 and Canada Post strikes — eventually made the business unsustainable.
Owner Marc Graff made the announcement this month to retire the flyers.
“We were fighting the good fight for the little guy,” he says. “All the people that work for me, we all felt the same way.”
He said it’s been tough to stay afloat for the past 15 years.
It was a hard decision to see both publications go. Graff had to lay off 10 employees.
“It was my child and it took care of all my children,” says Graff. “It’s the thing that put food on the table for us for 40 years … and built my house and sent my daughter to college.”
It started four decades ago when Graff, then 29, moved to Clare from Connecticut.
A stone mason by trade, he couldn’t do that work in the winter. He needed something more to support his family.
In 1984, he created the Clare Shopper to sell local advertisements. He borrowed $300 from his dad, bought an electric typewriter, and worked out of a small print shop in Little Brook.
The first paper was mailed to 3,200 homes in Clare. Soon, it reached homes and businesses as far away as Annapolis County to Shelburne County and everywhere in between.
For Aline Dedman, it was the fabric that kept the community informed.
“It’s like the end of an era,” says Dedman, who lives in Clare. She looked forward to flipping through the flyers every two weeks.
“It was something to hold physically in their hand and see what was going on in the community,” said Dedman
She sold tires, dishes and blankets. But it wasn’t just a place for advertisements. There were recipes, local events and obituaries.
“When people were sick and they wanted to have a benefit … I put that in for free … different things to help out the community that way,” Graff said. “It was just, like, people talking to each other.”
Dedman says the paper was a vital link for people in the community who didn’t have internet access, weren’t online or weren’t comfortable using technology.
Graff and Dedman hope a new publication can fill the void.
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