Avenue Video is a chain of video tape, video game and DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 rental shop

Rental shop

A rental shop, also known as a video library, is a business that allows a consumer to temporarily obtain a reusable good or product for a specified period of time in exchange for payment, a process known as renting...

s located in Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

History

Established in 1986, the Avenue Video chain expanded to comprise a number of franchises in the Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

 area. The chain entered the market to fill the demand for VHS

VHS

The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....

 cassette rental (fresh from the format's victory with rival format Betamax

Betamax

Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...

) for viewing in newly acquired videocassette recorder

Videocassette recorder

The videocassette recorder , is a type of electro-mechanical device that uses removable videocassettes that contain magnetic tape for recording analog audio and analog video from broadcast television so that the images and sound can be played back at a more convenient time...

s (VCRs).

The chain suffered throughout the 1990s, however, due to increased competition from competitors such as Blockbuster Video and Superclub Vidéotron

Vidéotron

Vidéotron GP is a Canadian integrated telecommunications company active in cable television, interactive multimedia development, video on demand, cable telephony, wireless communication and Internet access services. Currently, the company primarily serves Quebec, as well as the francophone...

, and the decreased profitability of the video rental business. The Avenue Video chain dwindled to just two locations by the end of the decade.

In the summer of 2000, Mike Taylor bought an Avenue Video location and moved its stock from its space on Greene Avenue

Greene Avenue

Greene Avenue is a north-south street in Westmount and Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It links Sherbrooke Street West in the north and Atwater Avenue, near the Atwater Market and Lachine Canal in the south. North of Sherbrooke, it is known as Mount Pleasant Avenue....

 in Westmount to its current location in the Montreal Island

Island of Montreal

The Island of Montreal , in extreme southwestern Quebec, Canada, is located at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. It is separated from Île Jésus by the Rivière des Prairies....

 municipality of Montreal West

Montreal West, Quebec

Montreal West is a town in southwestern Quebec, Canada on the Island of Montreal. On January 1, 2002 it, along with its neighboring suburbs of Côte Saint-Luc and Hampstead, was merged into a borough of the City of Montreal to be known as Côte-Saint-Luc—Hampstead—Montréal-Ouest, though 97% of the...

.

By 2003, Mike Taylor began to court the owner of the remaining location on Monkland Avenue in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce

Notre-Dame-de-Grâce , also nicknamed NDG, is a residential neighbourhood of Montreal located in the city's west-end. It is one of five districts of the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce...

, district of the Montreal borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce

Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce

Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce is a borough of Montreal, Quebec, Canada-Geography:Located to the north and west of Mount Royal, it was part of the City of Montreal prior to the 2002 municipal mergers...

. During 2004, he gained majority control over the location and began a renovation of the Avenue Video Monkland location during the summer of 2005.

Community

Avenue Video is more than just a movie rental store. Part of the annual Food & Toy Drive at the end of every year, Avenue Video brings together movie lovers to help the NDG Food Depot. Avenue Video is also part of the initiative to help Monkland Village get SDC status. Mike Taylor is a board member of the Monkland Merchants Association (MMA), a non-profit organization spear-headed by his wife, Kim Fuller. The MMA brings together the merchants, entrepreneurs, business owners etc. of Monkland Village to help support local business.

Avenue Video is also an active sponsor of the "Je m'active à NDG" event and supports the NDG Baseball Association.

Operations

The shops have around 10,000 films and 1,000 TV shows from North America and the U.K. They sell DVD, Xbox, PS2, PS3 and CDs, and sell and buy new and used DVDs, VHS and games.

Locations

• Avenue Vidéo Queen Mary, Montréal
  • Website: Queen Mary

• Avenue Vidéo Monkland, Montréal
  • Website: Monkland Avenue

• Avenue Video Westminster, Montréal-Ouest
  • Website: Westminster