So long, says Long's Hill Convenience: Beloved neighbourhood store closing after 42 years

When Dave D'Entremont hears that people are sharing stories about his store on social media, his eyes fill up and he turns around, making hard coughing sounds while chuckling a bit. It's the second time tonight he's teared up.

It's about 8:30 p.m. on Sept 30.

In about three hours, after 42 years in business, D'Entremont will switch off the neon Open sign in the window of Long's Hill Convenience for the very last time.

"It hasn't really hit home yet," he says. "I think tomorrow is going to be so weird. It'll be the first time we haven't worked on a Sunday for 42 years."

"It's a lifestyle more than a job, I guess."

'I thought I could retire in five or six years'

Before he opened the store, D'Entremont had a completely different lifestyle. He was working in telecommunications, living in Toronto and travelling all over the country. He even worked on the Alouette 1, Canada's first satellite.

But he got sick of the road and sick of restaurant food.

So when he came to Newfoundland on vacation and happened to fall in love, he had an easy time deciding to change everything.

"I love it here, never want to go back," he says. "I feel very privileged to live here, it's a very special spot."

All anybody wants, I think, is to be treated with respect.- Dave D'Entremont

He got married and he and his wife, Mary, opened the store.

"I thought that I could retire in five or six years," he says. "Forty-two years later…"  

At 70 years old, he says it's simply time to move on.

First man in, last man out

A group of people hang around outside the front of the store and a few people come in and leave their bags, coming in and out throughout the night. It's understood that their bags are safe there — D'Entremont will look after them.

He knows them all by name, and he knows if someone has been looking for them.

He speaks French to Thomas Mingui, a young Quebecois guy who comes in for beer — he and his roommates are having a party to celebrate the store's last night, bringing the empties back for D'Entremont to cash in for money for his non-profit reading program, Read To Ride, through which kids earn bikes by reading books.

"I just moved in like a month ago and people told me to drop them here because they go to charity," says Mingui. "There's not a lot of places that will offer charity for giving empty bottles. It's sad that the convenience stores at the corner of the street are closing, it's something we have a lot of in Quebec."

D'Entremont hugs a lot of the people who come in. A lot of people hold his hands in theirs over the counter.

At times, it's hard to move in the store because people are packed in between the glass-front cooler of deli meats and the white wooden shelves of canned food and dollar baggies of tea bags, talking to each other and to D'Entremont, wishing him well.

Nobody who comes in wants to leave.

"My brother Martin thinks he was the very first person to ever be served here," says Stephen Nolan, who lives right next door. "And I will be here right before 11 p.m. to be the last person to ever be served here."

"11:30 tonight, Stephen," D'Entremont calls over.

"It's a double whammy for me," says Nolan. "Not only are you losing a wonderful place where people can go in and be accepted but you're losing one of the best neighbours you're ever going to have in your life."

"When I was very, very young, [this area] was littered with little mom-and-pop stores that sold different things, candies and what have you. It's a thing of the past and, unfortunately in Newfoundland, it's another part of our cultural heritage that's being withered away."

'I've never seen so many drugs'

"This place is like a fishbowl," says D'Entremont, looking out onto the top of Long's Hill and across Harvey Road to the CLB Armory.

Through that window, he saw the first flames of the 1992 Harvey Road fire. He was the one who called it in, he says. 

He's also seen the neighbourhood change a lot.

"The dynamics of the whole neighbourhood have changed," he says, noting that families have moved out of the area and a lot of boarding houses and single people have replaced them.

"A lot of people falling through the cracks."

Sex workers are often working at the bottom of Long's Hill and in the surrounding area, there are three major facilities supporting low-income people: Stella's Circle, Choices For Youth and The Gathering Place.

"A lot of people are having difficulties around here," says D'Entremont. "You see people are almost afraid to go out at night sometimes, especially going down Long's Hill. It's sad, but it is what it is.

"There are a lot more drugs," he adds. "I've never seen so many drugs."

Known for kindness

Dan Meades, an advocate for lower-income people and the provincial co-ordinator for the Transition House Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, says Long's Hill Convenience is well-known for being safe, welcoming and accommodating spot for people of all incomes and backgrounds.

"Everyone that walked in the door was treated with respect," says Meades. "People who don't live in poverty don't always understand that that's not the way it is at every place you go. The people running Long's Hill Convenience really did that, and I think it's something we can learn from them.

"You can tell by the way that the owners managed that business and dealt with their clientele every day that they were trying to service their community."

For example, Long's Hill Convenience has one of the city's last pay phones just inside its door.

"[For] a lot of people, it's their way of communicating because they can't afford a cellphone," says D'Entremont. "They would phone people up for jobs and things like that.

"All anybody wants, I think, is to be treated with respect."

More time for cycle therapy

D'Entremont doesn't have any big plans for the next phase of his life. He wants to keep his Read for Ride program going, and maybe expand it. A cyclist himself — "I call my biking cycle therapy," he says — he's dreaming about a bike road trip on the new bike his wife just bought for him. And he says he might like to teach bike safety courses.

But even as the clock ticks toward closing time at 11:30 p.m. it seems like it's still tough for him to think about what the next day would be like, let alone the ensuing years.

When asked what he'd like to say as a sendoff, he tears up again and his words become scarce.

"Where does time go?" he asks, pausing for a moment.

"It's been an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm going to miss it very much. But it's time to move on to the next chapter."