Gateway Newstands is a chain of convenience stores and kiosks in large office buildings, shopping centres, public places, and transit stations in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Established in 1983,

Vaughan Vaughan () (2021 population 323,103) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increas ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

-based Tobmar Investments International Inc. (known simply as Tobmar) is the company that runs Gateway Newstands. The stores operate as independent

franchisees Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busine ...

and sell a wide variety of convenience items from

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

and lottery tickets; to candy,

chewing gum Chewing gum is a soft, cohesive substance designed to be chewed without being swallowed. Modern chewing gum is composed of gum base, sweeteners, softeners/ plasticizers, flavors, colors, and, typically, a hard or powdered polyol coating. Its t ...

, and

non-alcoholic beverage An alcohol-free or non-alcoholic drink, also known as a temperance drink, is a version of an alcoholic drink made without alcohol, or with the alcohol removed or reduced to almost zero. These may take the form of a non-alcoholic mixed drink (a "v ...

s; and

newspapers A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports ...

and

magazines A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...

. There are currently over 500 Gateway franchises in the network. In late 2020, Gateway Newstands, along with its affiliate Tobmar Investments International Inc., decided to wind-down operations at its franchise locations in the United States. By May 2022, Gateway Newstands had filed for creditor protection with Gateway owing creditors $20 million. In 2020 and 2021, about 40 Gateway locations had closed dropping from 191 locations at the beginning of 2020 to 150 in April 2022. The business decline was attributed to a lack of foot traffic due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. Gateway Newstands once operated over 300 locations in US and Canada in major urban centers. It had 65 locations in the

Toronto subway system The Toronto subway is a rapid transit system serving Toronto and the neighbouring city of Vaughan in Ontario, Canada, operated by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It is a multimodal transport, multimodal rail network consisting of three Pa ...

since the mid-1990s. It is the exclusive newsstand retailer in North America’s 3rd largest transit system, the

Toronto Transit Commission The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, some of which run into the Peel Region and York Region. It is the oldest and larges ...

. Competitors to Gateway Newstands accused the Toronto Transit Commission of sole-sourcing.

References

Convenience stores of Canada {{Canada-company-stub