By Grace McCarthy
Traffic at the Peace Arch border crossing, vehicles with BC license plates filling up at gas stations, and packages being picked up are signs of a return to normal in Blaine during the last week. But businesses that depend on Canadian customers say they don’t know what the future holds, as the number of Canadian travelers remains lower than before the border was closed to non-essential traffic in March 2020.
Brant Baron, owner of Mail Boxes International, said he was delighted to see packages that have waited over a year and a half on his store shelves to be brought home.
“Everything is a bit hazy,” he said. “It’s like being reunited with an old friend or family member.”
Baron said last week that this was the first time the parcel store had more packages leaving the store than delivered since the border was closed to non-essential travel in March 2020, thanks to the government’s decision Canadian to drop the Covid-19 testing requirement on November 30 for fully vaccinated Canadians traveling to the United States for less than 72 hours.
The numbers are still not close to what they would be during a typical holiday period, but Baron said it’s OK for now. Baron said he only added Saturday hours and always closed his store early in the week because he couldn’t find staff.
“You have the tension of wanting to do everything to help your members get their packages out with the reality that we won’t be able to stretch our workers,” he said of the employees currently working 50 to 60 hours per week.
While there has been a dramatic increase in the number of packages recovered, Baron said there was still a lot of concern about whether the US-Canada border would remain open with the new Omicron variant and people were always adapt to the use of the ArriveCAN application necessary to cross the border. .
“We still have a long way to go before we restore volume,” Baron said. “And who knows if that will ever happen.”
Hagen’s of Blaine co-owner Kelle Hagen has had similar experiences with her parcel store on Peace Portal Drive. Instead of a queue at the door as she expected, it was a trickle of customers to pick up over 10,000 packages.
“It’s been busier than we’ve seen in the past two years, but it’s not as busy as expected,” she said. “People have a lot of packages here and we still have a lot to get rid of. “
The store has been able to rehire a few of its former full-time employees to help around 100 customers they help per day, but is unable to extend hours and open on weekends. Eventually, the store will have to create a deadline for packages that aren’t collected, Hagen said.
According to Cascade Gateway Data, passenger vehicles traveling to the United States from the Peace Arch port of entry dropped from approximately 1,500 to 2,500 per day after November 8, when the U.S. border opened to Canadians. fully vaccinated, but they still had to have a negative Covid. -19 test to come back. That number has risen to more than 4,000 vehicles crossing the border daily since November 30. So far, Friday Dec. 3 had the most travelers with 10,754 passenger vehicles passing through Whatcom County.
Gury Gill, owner of D Street Shell gas station, said he’s starting to see a lot of repeat customers coming back, but it’s nowhere near the same.
“We’re starting to see a little boost but nothing close to 2019 at the moment,” he said. “Maybe people will slowly start to feel comfortable coming.”
Canadians mainly come for fuel, said Gill, whose gas station also sells milk and offers a small package storage service. Previously the gas station sold 100-200 gallons of milk per day, now it’s about 10 gallons. The gas station sells triple the amount of gasoline it sold during the border closure to about 1,500 gallons a day now, he said, but under normal circumstances it would have been 7,000 gallons per day.
Like Baron, Gill said he thinks the ArriveCAN app, which can take a few minutes to complete, makes some travelers hesitate. Gill is also hoping that the Covid-19 variants won’t roll back border restrictions.
“It was about time,” said Gill. “Whatcom County, especially Blaine, relies on Canadian businesses, so it was good that we could finally see Canadian traffic. I think everyone was happy that business was finally picking up.
Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University, said travel to and from Whatcom County since November 30 was 40% of the same week in 2019, while this week in 2020 accounted for only 5% of 2019 traffic.
“This indicates that Whatcom County is still a draw for Canadian buyers,” Trautman said. “I think most people are anxious to go back to stores they haven’t accessed.”
Trautman said she was not yet sure whether the 40 percent increase was a good or a bad sign, but expects it will take some time for Canadian traffic to return to previous levels. the pandemic, just as traffic took a long time to resume normally after the border was briefly closed during 9/11.
“It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve made it this far, so I hope the worst is over,” Hagen said. “Let’s knock on wood.”
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