Windsor, Sarnia duty free shops struggling amid cross-border traffic drop

Heather Kitching · CBC News

· Posted: May 07, 2025 2:42 PM EDT | Last Updated: 11 hours ago

Canadian operators of work escaped shops successful Windsor and Sarnia accidental concern is slumping acknowledgment to the United States' commercialized warfare with Canada.

The proprietor of Tunnel Duty Free successful Windsor says he's feeling tremendous unit to support the household concern afloat.

"In 1986, my parents opened the archetypal store successful Ontario present successful Windsor," Abe Taqtaq said. 

"They leveraged everything, enactment everything connected the enactment … The past happening I privation is to beryllium the 1 that's astatine the helm … if it continues to spell downwards."

Duty escaped stores look a unsocial situation among businesses impacted by the U.S. commercialized war, Taqtaq said: they tin lone merchantability goods destined for export to the United States and they don't person the enactment to look for caller markets. 

Yet rider conveyance postulation to the U.S. has been successful diminution this spring.

Cross-border postulation down twelvemonth implicit year

Passenger conveyance postulation crossed the Windsor-Detroit borderline was down six per cent successful March compared with March of past year, according to information from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Vehicle trips crossed the Ambassador Bridge and done the Windsor-Detroit passageway dropped from astir 300,000 to astir 282,000.

Passenger postulation crossed the Blue Water Bridge and connected the Algonac ferry dropped astir 25 per cent successful March compared to March of past twelvemonth – from astir 80,200 trips to astir 60,200 trips. 

The co-owner of Blue Water Duty Free successful Sarnia said her concern is down 27 per cent successful May truthful acold compared with the aforesaid period last year. But that's lone portion of the story. 

"When you spot rider [vehicle postulation statistic for] March versus the twelvemonth before, that goes against March past twelvemonth erstwhile we had disrupted postulation due to the fact that of [construction on] the bridges," said Tania Lee, who besides serves arsenic president of the Frontier Duty Free Association, which advocates for Canada's 32 onshore borderline work escaped stores.

"If we look astatine our income versus 2019, that's erstwhile you spot the existent representation … I'm down 42 per cent."

It's been a atrocious 5 years for the store, she said, starting with the borderline closures that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic and continuing with span closures owed to construction.

But Lee and Taqtaq some said their businesses are resilient, and they've survived hard times before. 

There are inactive plentifulness of radical headed to Detroit each day, Taqtaq said, and he's doing everything helium tin to entice those travelers to store astatine his store.  

"If you don't walk your wealth astatine a work escaped shop, it's going to beryllium spent successful the United States," helium said.

"So it's the past accidental to really support your wealth successful Canada and assistance the Canadian economy."

Stores accidental they request fiscal aid, regulatory changes

Taqtaq is not giving up connected the business, helium said, but helium mightiness request to marque immoderate "difficult decisions" successful the coming months.

He hopes that immoderate authorities alleviation for businesses affected by the commercialized warfare is disposable to work escaped shops, helium said – thing that hasn't ever been the lawsuit during erstwhile economical crises.

Lee echoed that sentiment.

The hardest deed stores, she said, request targeted enactment successful the signifier of interest-free loans oregon different measures specified arsenic the ones introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, erstwhile the national authorities offered wage subsidies and loans coupled with partial forgiveness. 

LISTEN | After 40 years, is Windsor's Tunnel Duty Free store connected the brink of closing?

Longer term, the authorities needs to marque changes to however work escaped shops are regulated to let them to beryllium much competitory with their American counterparts, she added.

By mode of example, she said stores indispensable presently comply with Canadian home labelling requirements adjacent though they are selling exclusively into the U.S. marketplace and indispensable merchantability products that are compliant with U.S. rules.

That prevents them from selling products if their suppliers don't let retailers to tamper with their labelling oregon brands.

In different cases, consumers simply balk astatine buying products with makeshift labels slapped connected them, Lee said. 

Both Lee and Taqtaq accidental they interest astir what volition hap if the commercialized warfare drags on.

For Lee, the interest is astir radical changing their habits: nary longer making trips to Trader Joe's oregon having a mailbox connected the different broadside of the borderline for Amazon packages. 

"The longer it goes on, the much you disrupt it, and the longer it takes to get back," she said. 

For Taqtaq, the interest is much astir the narration betwixt the 2 countries. 

"We ever notation to ourselves arsenic the two-nation destination," helium said.

"And that thought of going to the United States and traveling and past wanting to observe that camaraderie betwixt the 2 nations and the 2 cities, that's decidedly dissipated implicit the … past fewer months.

"And that's the portion that worries me. How agelong is it going to instrumentality for that to travel back?"