THUNDER BAY — A second Thunder Bay business on Bay Street will close its doors and operate out of one south-side location.
Toy Sense will continue to operate from the May Street location after ownership of the company changed hands.
The neighbouring Nomad Sandwich Bar on Bay Street has also announced its closure and relocation this week.
New owner Ken Cranwill acquired the Toy and Auto Sense business as part of a larger deal to purchase heavy trucking company Western Star Sales Thunder Bay.
Cranwill owns the Winnipeg-based Connexion Western Star truck company, which is part of the parent company, Daimler Trucks North America. He now operates Freightliner and Western Star truck dealers and Timmins (logging) Trailers in Ontario.
He said he is not closing the Toy Sense company; instead, he is amalgamating the two stores back to their original locations.
"Having a fraction of the (toy) inventory at a second location . . . and paying rent to somebody other than ourselves doesn't really make sense," Cranwill said.
"That's why we thought, let's put it back into one location and concentrate on our flagship store, and let's grow our business there and have a look at it and see how it does."
He said the toy and auto parts store seems to be an unusual combination but did well for the previous owners.
"Coming from Winnipeg, a toy store is a toy store, and an auto parts store is an auto parts store, but you don't have the two together, generally speaking," he said, adding that he is in the process of looking at whatever is in the best interest of the company and customers.
In the midst of reorganizing the Toy and Auto Sense business, Cranwill has also expanded his trucking company to Thunder Bay with the secondary Freightliner franchise.
"We were able to expand to now serve our customers from Thunder Bay," he said. "We have a little location for parts in Dryden, and then we have our Winnipeg store. If you're coming from Toronto and you have an unfortunate breakdown, you can come into our Thunder Bay location, or we can tow you in or whatever we need to do to look after you."
Western Star Sales Thunder Bay is located at 3150 Arthur St., near its neighbour, the Thunder Bay Speedway, which Cranwill sponsors.
"I tried my first persian (pastry) and my first Finnish pancake and gave them both a thumbs up," he said.
The Chronicle Journal / Local Journalism Initiative
