Gurpreet:

For our next stop, we’re not going too far. It’s a business that no longer exists, but it’s also the business that started the story of the Punjabi Market.

Sucha Singh Claire and Harbans Kaur Claire had a dream of building an ethnic enclave like the one they saw in Southall, London. So on May 31st, 1970, they opened Shaan Sari’s, the first store in the Punjabi Market. It was located in between HC Jewelers and Sadhna Sari’s at 6576 Main St, which is now RK Designs & Jewellers.

No one can tell this story better than Mr & Mrs Claire, so we’ll let them do the honours.

Sucha Singh Claire:

When I was over there [in England], there were no Indian businesses. After staying 7 years, during my stay over there, a lot of businesses opened like grocery and fabric stores for the [Indian] communities.

So, then I decided to move to Canada. I came over here in October 69’...Actually, I got the information when I was in England that in Vancouver that there are no Indian businesses, like grocery or fabric stores. So I decided there that when I go to Canada that I will open my own business.

I arrived here on 31st of October 1969, then I tried to find a place where I could open my fabric store. I noticed in those days that the Ross Street Gurdwara was going to be opened on Vaisakhi Day 1970. So I picked up a location in that area of Main and 49th.

Now, at the moment, where the Himalaya restaurant is, there was a coffee shop. I was sitting over there and I saw the store for rent. I rented that place at 6576 Main Street, [and] we opened our store on 31st of May 1970. The Gurdwara opened in the month of April, a month before we opened our store.

That [Gurdwara] was the attraction for the Indo-Canadian community to come for grocery, for jewellery, for fabric. Then the other business people who were very interested in opening their own business, I invited everybody to come to this area. [I thought] when a lot of the businesses would be here, the more and more people, the more and more customers would come to this area.

Harbans Kaur Claire (Spoken in Punjabi):

We started the market when we opened the first Sari business. Before us, there was no Sari business. Then we started adding more products like suits and drapes.

People still stop us and ask us to reopen the store so that they can come shop with us like they used to. Even our old employees tell us how much they miss our business. They miss it so much that they keep asking us to reopen so they can work with us again. Everyone was happy, our employees were happy and our customers always left happy after shopping with us, and we were also very happy.

Sucha Singh Claire:

People were coming, and they appreciated that I started this [market], that will help to create and keep the culture — the Punjabi and the Canadian culture. In the middle of the 1980’s, we formed a Punjabi Market Association. That [association] approached the City to recognize that area as the Punjabi Market because at that time there were 70 businesses run by the Indian community. Then Mr Bellamy, a councilor in the City Hall, in 1982 he put a motion in the City Hall to recognize that area to be the Punjabi Market. But due to the opposition from the...I can say that this is...discrimination or racial issue, and most white people started to oppose the idea of the Punjabi Market. [As a result of this] Mr Bellamy took that motion back.

We tried, and we carried on our fight to be recognized as the Punjabi Market. In 1983, Mr Gordon Campbell, the mayor of the City Hall, passed a resolution that the area would be called the Punjabi Market. In the month of June, he put the signs that you see in the Punjabi Market. So that was officially, in 1993, that area was recognized as the Punjabi Market.

At that time, there were 400 people working in our shops, and that was great for the City. And we were paying the taxes for the properties, and the tax on our sales, and that was good economic help to the City, and it was created by the Punjabi Market.

Gurpreet:

Thank you Mr & Mrs Claire.

We’re going to visit one more jewelry shop next, so we’ll continue down the path. Be careful again as you cross the intersection at 50th Ave.