Beloved Vancouver movie rental store prepares to close up shop

One of the last video rental stores in B.C. has announced it intends to close its doors this summer.

Black Dog Video, a staple in East Vancouver, outlasted video chain Blockbuster by 11 years, but owner Darren Gay says video rentals are no match for the myriad streaming services movie lovers have access to nowadays.

"It's the streaming services that have done us in," he told On the Coast host Gloria Macarenko. "The explosion of them in the last year or two, it's just one more nail in the coffin every time another one starts up."

Rent and other costs have gone up, whereas a rental company doesn't have the luxury to increase sale prices, forcing Gay to make the difficult decision to pack it in.

Black Dog video has been in business 26 years, for 16 of which the store has been located on Commercial Drive. During that time, Gay and his employees have forged friendships with customers and curated a collection of 17,000 films for true cinephiles.

"It's easy to just switch on your streaming services. I like to call it the convenience of mediocrity, because that's basically what streaming services are," Gay said.

"It's going to be sad when we're all gone because the availability of these amazing films is going to be gone. You're not going to find most of the stuff on streaming services."

CBC visits Vancouver's last DVD rental store

5 years ago

Duration 1:41

Catch up with Darren Gay, owner of Black Dog Video.

Now, Gay is tasked with selling off thousands of movies, which he said has been devastating in and of itself.

"It's tough because I spend my days here and I love being around these movies."

He expects to start selling the collection May 1.

After owning and running a small business for so long, Gay isn't sure what's next for him.

"I'm too young to retire, really, and I'm too old to find some meaningful employment. I haven't had to look for a job for close to 30 years, and I do not know how to do that anymore."

He says the thing he'll miss most about his time renting out films to Vancouverites will be the people.

"The customers that I've met and made friends with, I'mjust going to miss that daily interaction. I know so many people, you know, first name basis and consider them friends, and so that's going to be really hard."