Howard Zidell remembers when there were six pawnshops in downtown Vancouver.
Having worked in Cameo Main Street Loan and Pawn Shop and its predecessor since the early 1950s, the 70-year-old Zidell remembers a lot more about what once was the city’s retailing epicenter.
Today, there are only three downtown pawnshops.
After mid-November, there will be two.
Zidell and business partners Donald and Susan Morgan have decided various factors make this an ideal time to close the transaction counter for good. The store that Zidell’s father purchased in 1955 will cease doing business with a Nov. 17-18 auction of inventory, including office items.
A thriving economy, internet competition, a lack of foot traffic and the owners’ ages figured into the decision to close, said Zidell. He said there would be no attempt to sell Cameo Main Street and that no heirs are interested in taking over — as Zidell did from his father.
His father, Theodore “Ted” Zidell, purchased Main Street Loan in 1955 when it was located at 904 Main St. The 93-year-old Ted Zidell, once a well-known fixture on Main Street, now lives in a retirement home. Main Street Loan had been in business for perhaps a decade before that purchase.
Main Street Loan moved to 902 Main St. in the mid-1970s. It moved in 1982 to its present location — a 4,000-square-foot retail space at 604 Main St. in the historic brick Schofield Building. Main Street Loan merged with Morgan’s Cameo Loan in 2003.
Pawnshops operate as combination retailers and lending institutions. Customers offer merchandise as collateral in exchange for loans for up to 90 days. At that time, the customer repays the loan amount plus processing fees and interest. Customers can extend the loan by paying the processing fees and interest, which are regulated by the state.
If the customer decides at the end of the loan term they do not want to complete the loan requirements, the loan is considered paid in full. The customer keeps the cash and the pawnshop keeps the collateral, which is generally resold to the public.
A thriving economy reduces the need for pawnshops, making their short-term loan service less appealing, Zidell said.
And Cameo Main Street Loan has plenty of collateral.
It has rows of rifles and shotguns, shelves of power tools, racks of fishing poles and walls teeming with trophy animals and artwork.
It’s just harder to sell that stuff these days, said Zidell, citing competition from internet competitors, an experience shared by pawnshops nationwide including the other two downtown Vancouver shops. They are Lucky Loan Pawn Shop at 614 Main St., and Briz Loan & Guitar at 506 Washington St.
Competing with Walmart
At Lucky Loan, co-owner Dan Maks pages through a laptop computer, examining Walmart’s website. The particular page is full of PlayStation 3 video game consoles. But these are refurbished consoles, not new ones.
There was a time not long ago that resale of used video games and consoles was a reliable source of revenue, Maks said, pausing for a customer to plunk down a one-dollar bill to purchase a CD.
Lucky Loan, like Cameo Main Street Loan, looks much as it did 10 years ago and perhaps several years before that. Like Cameo, Lucky Loan has its share of taxidermy, power tools and guns. Each of them also have museum-quality safes. Maks said theirs dates to 1873; Zidell said theirs is at least 100 years old.
Briz is a different business model, as it is a music shop first and a pawnshop — for music gear only — second, said owner Matt Brislawn.
“They balance each other,” Brislawn said in an email. “Even with the internet trying to take a bigger bite every year, nothing online can replace the thrill of walking through a used music shop where you get to actually feel the guitar in your hands … and maybe bump into a fellow musician.”
Walking outside the business on a sunny weekday morning last week, Zidell acknowledged that downtown Vancouver has undergone roller-coaster-style change in the past two decades.
He learned the pawn business from his father during a bygone era. “It was a fun time to do business,” he said. “People cared about their customers. It wasn’t impersonal like it is now.”
Shoe shops, clothing stores and J.C. Penney Co. thrived on Main Street at one time, he said. And yes, cardrooms also thrived.
The business owners, such as Mel Shevach of Melvin’s Men’s Shop at 901 Main St., would often gather for a drink on Fridays at The Frontier Room, now closed, or for breakfast at Joe Brown’s Cafe, a place that, to Zidell’s amazement, is still in business after its 1932 start. J.C. Penney moved to Vancouver Mall four decades ago.
You’ve heard of the big Columbus Day Storm in 1962, right? Zidell asked. The storm hit a week before hunting season started, he said. The shop sold every hunting rifle in its stock. The last was sold by propane light because the electricity was knocked out.
That storm damaged the windows of several Main Street businesses, including Penney’s, he said. So, Zidell said his father put on a hard hat, grabbed a gun and stood at the J.C. Penney front door and kept an eye on other nearby businesses throughout the night of Oct. 12, 1962.
“My dad, guarding Main Street,” Zidell said, laughing.
Downtown changing
Zidell said he hasn’t been impressed with downtown’s recent influx of restaurants and bars. His business hasn’t benefited. Also, he contended a variety of city of Vancouver street and sidewalk improvement projects have hindered as much as helped foot traffic. Zidell said he did not know what his landlord, Schofield Properties, plans to do with the soon-to-be-vacant space, but he said a restaurant is a possibility.
Undoubtedly, downtown Vancouver’s retailing landscape is changing, said Steve Becker, executive director of Vancouver’s Downtown Association.
“It’s always sad to see a longtime business leave Main Street. Cameo had a great run,” Becker said. “But we also know there are profound changes coming to the retail landscape in downtown Vancouver.”
Becker cited residential projects underway at The Waterfront Vancouver, as well as plans for a fourth Vancouvercenter building, an 11-story tower on Block 10 and plans to develop around theProvidence Academy building.
“As we see more and more residential construction come on line,” Becker said, “downtown is going to fundamentally change what the retail environment looks like.”
That retailing environment apparently will include at least two pawnshops. Briz Loan isn’t going anywhere. And Maks vowed that Lucky Loan plans to continue to offer its pawn services for the foreseeable future. And he predicts continued demand for his services.
“As long as people still spend more than they make,” Maks said, “there will always be pawnshops.”
