Little Toronto shop celebrates milestone chapter at 90 years old
Squibb’s Stationers co-owners say there’s nothing else that they would rather be doing
That characteristic old-book smell — slightly sweet, maybe a little musty — hits you as soon as you open the door to Squibb’s Stationers, and for good reason.
The independent shop, tucked away on Weston Rd. near Lawrence Ave. W., is all creaky floors and narrow aisles, shelves stuffed with everything from textbooks to art supplies to Harry Potter paraphernalia; it’s Toronto’s self-proclaimed oldest bookstore (and third-oldest stationers) and on Saturday, it will be celebrating its 90th anniversary in Weston Village.
“People always ask us, ‘How do you com- pete with Chapters Indigo?’ or ‘How do you compete with Staples?’ ” co-owner Suri Weinberg-Linsky said. “And I say, ‘You know what? We don’t compete with them, they compete with us.’ We’ve been here a long time. We might not be the richest, we might not be the biggest, but we’re here.”
To help mark the anniversary, Canadian novelist Antanas Sileika, a Weston native who worked at the store when he was in high school, will be doing a reading from his new memoir, The Barefoot Bingo Caller.
With her husband Michael Linksy, Weinberg-Linsky took over the store in 2001 from her parents, who had bought it back in 1980. Squibb’s, as a brand, has been around since 1927, when Arthur and Carey Squibb set up shop at 54 Main St. back when Weston was still its own village, before moving to the store’s current location in 1935.
“It’s always been the traditional mom-and-pop, the husband and wife working together side by side,” Weinberg-Linsky said. “People like shopping independents. They like old-fashioned customer service.”
Regular Squibb’s customer Gail Bird said that’s exactly what keeps her coming back.
“It’s the whole thing about a bookstore, the old days of wooden shelves. And I know you can go to Amazon and have it delivered, but it’s not the same as touching the books and dealing with such a lovely lady,” said Bird, who was looking for books for her granddaughter when the Star stopped by on a weekday afternoon.
“It’s more intimate, more personal.”
Besides building friendships with customers, Weinberg-Linsky said she’s been able to see trends come and go over the years, many of them unexpected — fountain pens have become a hot commodity again, no one buys ledgers anymore and Harry Potter’s popularity still shows no signs of slowing down — but the most perplexing relates to the explosion of sales for one book in particular.
“In the last15 or so years, Bible sales have increased probably a thousandfold,” Weinberg-Linsky said. “We don’t go one day without selling at least one Bible . . . Honestly, I wouldn’t even be able to tell you why.”
And although it hasn’t always been smooth sailing — the store took a huge hit when the province began buying textbooks for elementary and high school students in the ’90s instead of requiring them to bring their own — both Weinberg-Linsky and her husband said there’s nothing else they’d rather be doing.
“Running a business is a struggle, especially a small business like this, and sometimes, you’re asking yourself, is it worth it? Should you keep going?” Linksy said.
“But when you know you’re part of a business that has been part of a community and has been around this long, you know you’re a part of something special and you want to keep it going.” Weinberg-Linsky agreed. “We’ve been very lucky.”