Brampton Mall
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Brampton Mall is a
shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to refe ...
in
Brampton Brampton ( or ) is a city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Brampton is a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a List of municipalities in Ontario#Lower-tier municipalities, lower-tier municipalit ...
,
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 Ca ...
, Canada. Typical of early North American malls, the Brampton Mall is an outdoor plaza with two rows of stores, connected by a "covered breezeway".


History of the mall

Initially, Brampton Mall planned to stay open Mondays, against Brampton's closing hours by-law, announcing their intentions the morning of November 15, 1960. Also that day, the retail merchants committee of the Brampton Chamber of Commerce met November 15 with Brampton Shopping Centre officials regarding the "delicate subject" of business hours for retail in town. Officials from the mall wanted to arrange a meeting of all merchants after Christmas, both in the downtown and in the mall, to determine store shopping hours. Patrick McQuade, the mall's director of operations, later told the press that they indeed would observe Monday and evening closing hours, stating "We feel by-law amendments might be studied toward the end of the year." The 34 store plaza was anchored by Steinberg's, who simultaneously opened stores at Newtonbrook Plaza, Yonge Street and Cummer Avenue, and Cedarbrae Plaza, at Lawrence Avenue and Markham Road, adding to two previous GTA locations. (By 1962, the store was simply "Steinberg", singular.) Five stores were gutted in a fire in 1963; being a Monday, the mall was closed at the time, and no one injured. The fire caused damage to eleven other units in the mall, a variety of stores and offices. Starting in a drapery and fabric store, it spread to a photography studio, brides' shop, cleaners, and a dress and fur store. It caused $250,000 in damages. Firefighters had the flames under control within an hour, fighting "to the accompaniment of hi-fi music over the mall loudspeakers." Half of the 26 lanes in the mall's bowling alley were water damaged. ''The Toronto Star'' suggested the centre of the mall was "turned... into a miniature lake," which "dozens of children romped on bicycles through the water." In 1970, a committee of the Town of Brampton's council approved relocating Meadowland Gate, 100 feet east of its present location, to allow for the expansion of the Brampton Mall. The move allowed the plaza the opportunity to add four acres and 59,000 square feet of new commercial space. By 1974, the anchor grocery unit had changed to
Miracle Food Mart Miracle Food Mart was a supermarket chain in Ontario, Canada, owned by Steinberg's, a Quebec-based retailer in the 1970s and 1980s. Steinberg purchased the Canadian division of Grand Union, with 38 stores, in June 1959 to make its entrance int ...
, whose other locations included
Bramalea City Centre The Bramalea City Centre is a large shopping mall located in the city of Brampton, Ontario, Canada. With over a 1.5 million square feet of retail space and more than 300 outlets, it is one of Canada's largest shopping malls. Regarded as a super r ...
. As of 1976, there was an outlet of the Peel Region Health Unit at the mall. Lease agreements continued until at least 1982, but this may exclusively been on behalf of the
Peel Children's Aid Society Peel or Peeling may refer to: Places Australia * Peel (Western Australia) * Peel Island, Queensland *Peel, New South Wales * Peel River (New South Wales) Canada * Peel Parish, New Brunswick * Peel, New Brunswick, an unincorporated community ...
. In 1992, Airi Anneli Makinen was murdered by estranged husband Runo Mark Cairenius in a hammer attack, when Makinen returned home from the Brampton Mall. He received life in prison and was denied a parole hearing in 2008. Separately, in 1983, a purse-snatcher, a homeless man known to locals only as John the Baptist, dragged a senior several yards in an attempt to steal her purse, and in 1995, an armed robbery took place at the Bargain Shop. On May 15, 2008 in the early evening, three youth broke into the vacant bowling alley unit at the mall. They started a fire, which led to police and fire evacuated the mall. An investigation was scheduled for two to three days while engineers and city officials looked at the structural damage. The fire created $1 million worth of damage, particularly to Movie Experts, Shoppers Drug Mart and Brampton Home Furnishing. Eight stores were affected, and an underground delivery corridor's concrete ceiling dropped 6 to 8 inches. Firefighters had to search a "maze of corridors" in the basement, to ensure no one remained in the building. One of the youths involved was 17-year-old Richard Sloppick who was subsequently charged with arson. Power was turned off to all units except A&P and Coffee Time, and shut down traffic on Main Street. Shoppers Drug Mart set up a temporary facility for prescriptions during the closure. Due to changes in the
Old Age Security The Old Age Security (OAS) (SV; french: Sécurité de la vieillesse) program is a universal retirement pension available to most residents and citizens of Canada who have reached 65 years old. This pension is supplemented by the Guaranteed Income ...
plan, members of the
Ontario Federation of Labour The Ontario Federation of Labour is a federation of labour unions in the Canadian province of Ontario. The original OFL was established by the Canadian Congress of Labour in 1944. It was merged with the rival Ontario Provincial Federation of La ...
occupied Conservative MP
Kyle Seeback Kyle Seeback (born August 19, 1970) is a Canadian politician and lawyer, who was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dufferin—Caledon in the 2019 election. He also represented the riding of Brampton West from 2011 to 2015. He was d ...
's constituency office at Brampton Mall, in 2012. The mall is part of the Hurontario-Main Corridor Secondary Plan.{{Cite web, url=http://www.bramptonguardian.com/news/cityhall/article/1306076, title = Brampton Breaking News - Brampton's Online Newspaper


See also

*
Shoppers World Brampton Shoppers World Brampton is a shopping mall in Brampton, Ontario, Canada. It is host to over 190 stores, including Canadian Tire, Winners and Staples. History In 1961, Elder Mines & Development Ltd. and Peel Village Developments created Shopp ...
, opened in 1969, further south on Main Street South


References

Shopping malls in Ontario Shopping malls established in 1960 Buildings and structures in Brampton