(Cam Lee/northeastNOW Staff)

By Cam Lee

Thomas Motors

Thomas Motors closes Nipawin operations

Feb 26, 2020 | 10:46 AM

A business that has been around Nipawin for over 40 years is in its final days.

Thomas Motors in Nipawin is closing its doors Friday, Feb. 28. Four full-time and one part-time staff members will lose their jobs as a result.

“What I feel bad about is we’ve had a lot of great customers, we’ve got staff there that don’t have work right now and I’m trying to help out and get them some other positions in town,” owner Darrell Farley told northeastNOW.

Farley said a number of factors led to the decision to close, including a slower economy. He said recreational stand-alone stores don’t seem to make their way on their own.

“Melfort here, if it wasn’t for having the Honda car dealership, both of them, it wouldn’t probably be feasible here also,” Farley said.

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Online shopping has also taken a bite out of profits.

“There’s a lot of stuff in our showrooms that you can have delivered to your house and that’s kind of a tough one too. It hasn’t helped us any,” he added.

Recreational vehicle sales, including snowmobiles, are also largely at the mercy of the weather.

“We know if we don’t have snow by Christmas we have to start selling stuff very cheap or at not much profit to move stuff, so that we don’t have to sit on it all summer and pay interest on it,” he said. “It’s been a lot of winters where we just haven’t had [snow].”

Farley said it seems people are a little more cautious with their money, even choosing to repair things themselves rather than taking vehicles to dealerships.

Thomas Motors also used to do a lot of business with youth who went to Alberta to work on rigs and in the oil and gas business, but a lot of that business is gone with the downturn in the industry.

“Our farmers aren’t getting paid either as long as our trains aren’t running so there’s lots of little things that are hurting us right now,” Farley said.

He said the Melfort operations won’t be affected, and they hope to work out something to help customers in the Nipawin area.

“I just want to thank everybody. We’ve had some great customers out there and we still do,” Farley said.

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cam.lee@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @camlee1974