{"id":204494,"date":"2025-10-11T05:52:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T05:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204494\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T05:52:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T05:52:11","slug":"small-business-owners-say-alberta-teachers-strike-is-hurting-their-bottom-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/204494\/","title":{"rendered":"Small business owners say Alberta teachers\u2019 strike is hurting their bottom line"},"content":{"rendered":"

Urban Street Donair is located just steps away from Calgary\u2019s James Fowler High School.<\/p>\n

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Lunchtime is normally the busiest time of day for owner Sammy Aboumrad He estimates he gets up to 50 customers between noon and 12:20 p.m., and many of them area students.<\/p>\n

But during the Friday lunch hour this week he only had about eight customers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe rely a lot on the students for our business. I\u2019ve been waiting by the minute for the summer to end so we can get back into full swing,\u201d\u00a0 Aboumrad said.<\/p>\n

However, just a month into the school year and the students are gone again because of the teachers strike. \u201cIt\u2019s been a ghost town in here in the daytime without the students,\u201d Aboumrad said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe owner of Urban Street Donair in Calgary says he\u2019d normally get about 50 customers during the first 20 minutes of lunch hour. On Friday, with the teachers on strike, he only got about eight orders during the same time period.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

To make the situation worse, some of his other regular customers have disappeared too, forced to stay home to look after their kids while they\u2019re out of school.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s been really frustrating, to be honest with you. I don\u2019t blame the teachers,\u201d Aboumrad said. \u201cI completely understand where they\u2019re coming from.\u00a0 Thirteen years without a raise is a lot, especially with our economy the way it is. I don\u2019t blame them, especially dealing with students all day long, right? That\u2019s not easy. But it has been terrible for business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Get<\/p>\n

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He\u2019s tried doing more business with food delivery companies, but because of the commissions they charge he said \u201cthere\u2019s really no room for too much profit there.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the teachers and the government don\u2019t come to an agreement soon, Aboumrad fears he may need to layoff some employees.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tThe executive director of Calgary\u2019s Hangar Flight Museum says he\u2019s hopeful the dispute between the province and teachers will be resolved soon because not having any classes of students visiting the museum is having a big impact on the bottom line.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

At Calgary\u2019s Hangar Flight Museum, its a similar story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe usually have two schools in the morning and two schools in the afternoon. Since the teacher\u2019s strike, it\u2019s been a very quiet atmosphere around the museum,\u201d said executive director Brian Desjardins.<\/p>\n

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\u201cHosting students and learning about the theory of flight, science of flight is very much a revenue generator here at the Hanger Flight Museum\u2026 We hosted close to 13,000 students last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The museum has tried to make up some of the shortfall by hosting day camps for students and their families during the strike, but Desjardins is hoping for a return to class soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone through difficult times in the past,\u201d Desjardin said, noting the COVID-19 panademic as an example. \u201cWe survived that.\u00a0 We\u2019re just hoping that things will get resolved as quick as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the meantime, small business owners affected by the strike are making a plea for the public to keep them in mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, support local guys, especially around high schools and junior high schools because those students come out and spend a lot of money. And with the economy the way that it is, everything is so pricey, there\u2019s already not a lot a profit,\u201d Aboumrad said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo support us guys. Support everybody that needs help, all the smaller businesses that you can. Keep it local and help us out, we\u2019d appreciate that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:37
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStriking Alberta teachers, province to resume bargaining talks after Thanksgiving\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Urban Street Donair is located just steps away from Calgary\u2019s James Fowler High School. Lunchtime is normally the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[64916,48,46,549,100283,43,44,714,100282,41,39,42,40,100284],"class_list":{"0":"post-204494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-alberta-teachers-strike","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-education","12":"tag-hangar-flight-museum","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-teacher-strike","17":"tag-top-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topnews","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-urban-street-donair"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}