Fernie has lost its charm.

[whathasferniebecome]

Fernie needs the touch of a magic wand to get its charm back. It seems that Fernie has fallen victim to the growing mentally that big corporations can come into a small community and take over the majority of business. Its sad to see small businesses that have suceeded for years and years in Fernie fall victim to Big corporations. It will be not long until local gift shops, coffee shops, restaraunts, and clothing shops fall victim if they already haven’t to big corporations. What happened to customer loyalty? Support the local small businesses in Fernie and stop the chains of crap stores like Canadian tire and Extra Foods from turning an awesome town into a circus show. The price “yes” is lower, but is the quality there? is the service there?
Also Fernie doesn’t need another golf course, what they need is people that can run and manage the public course that we have now. Give the golf course back to the people in the town it belongs to. We need management down at FGCC to make it affordable and enjoyable for the locals to play, instead of the green fee traffic from out of town. Quit worrying about profits and focus on the basics.
The clubhouse should be one of the best places to eat in town, instead it is a steady decline of disappointment. The two biggest complaints of mine: The Golf Course and Big Corporations… ask yourself what makes you upset about Fernie, if anything?

[garby]

I have lived in the Elkvalley for most of my life, and this is the first time I can remember as many employment opportunities available in the valley. There are help wanted signs everywhere. The mines are active and healthy. There’s new construction where there hadn’t been in three decades or more.

Fernie may not be the small hick town it once was, where everyone knew everyone and what they had for supper, but I don’t see that as a loss. I see alot of new faces, new business, and a growing community.

I’m not saying there isn’t any problems, (houseing costs comes to mind), but all in all I think Fernie is heading in the right direction. Thank you Canadian Tire, Stanford, 901 Fernie, Pinnacle Ridge, and everyone else that has chosen to invest in our community.

[edwin]

so
when you leave fernie, assuming you do, where do you go and where do you shop? winners? wal mart? MEC? the malls? the box stores? i bet we would see you at many of these sorts of places. face it, retail is evil but what can we do now?
extra foods? its here. dont shop there if you dont want to. mcdonalds, hortons…they are here too. CT ? well, if we have a few we may as well add one more eh? and yes, service is generally much better at mom and pop shops so its a hands down situation if the product is available at those smaller shops, forsure they’ll get the sale.
as far as golf….truth be known it is more for an elite budget, much like cars thus i guess you dont drive a bentley or ferrari THUS there are cars for us who cant pay the price and THUS there is sports we can do for less $$$. try hiking. fishing. mtn biking. and so on.
i hear your lofty wishes but as Ricky on trailer park boys says “it’s not gonna happen” coz so much has already happend.

[canatedian]

How big does this town have to get before we see a tattoo shop, 24 hour grocery store, massage parlor, escort service, and shoe repair shop?

Get a grip!

boo hoo, Im sure they’ll tear down the canadian tire now that someone has presented a negative opinion towards it.

Big change takes time. Unless Your Oprah.

Still countin my canadian tire bucks – Nate-

[canatedian]

Looks like im not the only one with a real possitive opinion tho. 44% Very happy 44% just less than very happy.

PS I m getting tattooed next week. shoe repair might be a while. bwahhahahahaha.

[wrender]

I’ve spent time in other town’s and cities, and i find this one is nice. If you think golf courses and land development companies are big corporations, check out the federal government or walmart. yikes. the world is changing, and local bob’s local bait and tackal shop might not make it by… if they throw a mega bob’s bait and tackal sale they might be able to compete with crappy tire.

[whathasferniebecome]

Towns are always growing…. there is no doubt about that, and growth is great for a community, but lets do it in more useful ways. Put things in Fernie that the local Fernie people can benefit from. Job creation is great, I don’t disagree against that. If Fernie continues its growth in Big corporations, it will run into problems such as finding enough people to work minimum wage jobs, I take a look at some places in the interior and in alberta and see that there is no such thing as a minimum wage job anymore. KFC and A &Ws are starting workers out at $10-15 bucks an hour. I see both sides, it is great that the workers are getting paid more, but in the end they really are not because situations like these bring inflation up immensely. If you want long line-ups and the minimum to no service levels at your local gas station, grocery store, and restaraunts then keep supporting big corporations, the more support towards big corporations, bigger corporations will take their places and even bigger will take theirs. The economy right now is very strong, but struggles to find the manpower because of these big corporations. Try going to a Home Depot or a Rona and see how much service you get…. you are practially invisible! With this rate, Fernie will no longer be a desired tourist stop, people demand service! So ask yourself if Fernie provides the service necessary for both its tourists and its locals.

[tpb]

Fernie is great the way it is, I just hope they build a KFC, and a Wal-Mart!!

[moke]

come on, what has fernie become…

do your voting with your pocket book and your feet my friend, if you dont like canadian tire shop at IGS, if you do not like Mcdonalds, go to a local restaurant..did you notice super pizza chain dominoes shut down but the local pie shops have kept runnin? ….service my friend

i dont know, i have been here 10 years and i can tell you that downtown has come a looong way when customer satisfaction is concerned, istead of harping on the new box stores we should be talking about the great service one recieves downtown..

this is just a start, but here is my list of favourite places to shop because the service is EXCELLENT!!!! and i am sure that i will forget some so please feel freee to add..

IGS
SKI BASE
CHOCOLATE FACTORY
MUG SHOTS, AND FRESHIES
BOARD STIFF
GHOSTRIDER TRADING
BRT
VALLET FAMILY FOOTWEAR
BROWNS MEAT MARKET (yeah beef jerky)
GIVER SHIRT WORKS
THE CENTRAL

Yeah fernie has it’s little problems, but hot damn if this place isnt as close to paradise as one can find..

what fernie has become, i challenge you to tell me where there is a better town to live..

[gavitron]

Moke, you say:
Yeah fernie has it’s little problems, but hot damn if this place isnt as close to paradise as one can find..

what fernie has become, i challenge you to tell me where there is a better town to live..

whathasferniebecome is saying that he doesn’t want Fernie to change. You’re saying you’re ok with it. If Fernie changes, will it still be so close to paradise? If its that good the way it is, change really isn’t a good thing no?

Anyways…
I hate rumours, so I try to find the truth whenever I can. To enlighten anyone who may be interested, I managed Domino’s for its last 2 and a half years. The decision to close the store was based solely on the lack of reliable workers in Fernie. Incase we haven’t noticed, people come here to ski and slack off. And there aren’t enough of us here that make this place our permanent home and try to bulid our financial stability to work all the businesses. I am greatful everyday for the few people that worked with me there that put in more hours and effort to keep it going as long as we could. It seems not a week goes by that I don’t have someone say to me “Gav what happened to Domino’s??? Now we have to order from that other place…” Turbo, one of Fernies older businesses, suffered the same fate. Its a choice business owners are being faced with, either close up shop, or give every penny to the employees so they will stay. We all have our own way of thinking, but for me there isn’t much point in owning a business if you don’t get to keep much for yourself.

[sparkes]

.

[moke]

no matter where you live, you will never escape change and progress, if anyone thinks that fernie is growing fast just leave town and go pretty much anywhere else, and you will find places are growing so fast that it makes fernie look like we are having a siesta, look at cranbrook, all of alberta, all of ontario, anywhere in the okanagan, and the greater vancouver area, everywhere is booming, when you compare fernie to alot of places you soon enough think that fernie is still on the slow burn, yes things are changing, but show me a town that isnt…

gavitron, what i was trying to say is that competition is good, it makes everybody pull up there socks, and it definately has made the downtown more competative and focussed on customer service..

excuse me about the dominoes comment, i was happy to see it here, and sad to see it go, and yes i realize that even franchises are mostly owned locally, but how could anybody beat the pizza deals that elk valley pizza throws down, and there service is excellent..my comment about dominoes, was meant to be praise for the other local pizza shops…

my comments here may be a little misguided but i have been thinking for awhile about posting positives about service in local shops, not negatives.. and i was trying to point out that there are a lot of shops in town that have wicked good customer service, and that should hopefully be enough to keep people shopping there…

i love that canadian tire is here, i could care less either way about mcdonalds, but i am sure the kids like it, and honestly i just realized yesterday that i hadnt had a tim hortons coffee in over a month!!!didnt even know the prices went up and didnt miss it..

peace out

[Author]

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