Queen Video closing original location after 35 years

It's the end of an era for video stores in Toronto with news that after 35 years Queen Video is closing its original location. The decision to shutter was announced on Twitter yesterday evening, though a specific explanation was not offered. Given the state of the movie rental business, it wasn't really necessary.

The Annex location at 480 Bloor Street West will remain open, which means that the sprawling library of over 60,000 films will remain mostly intact even as stock from the Queen location will go on sale starting this weekend.

That, I suppose, is the silver lining for film buffs in this news: this is an opportunity to get your hands on some tough to find titles at discount prices. Details related to the sale have yet to be revealed, but I can tell you that it gets underway at 11 a.m. on Friday and you'll want to be there early if you hope to snag the really rare stuff.

A final closing date has yet to be determined, but owner Howard Levman told CityNews that the plan is to conduct the sale at the 412 Queen Street West location for about six weeks, which would bring us to around the end of April. He'd like to clear as much of the store's stock as possible during that time.

Get in there while you can. A lot of this stuff can't be found on Netflix or iTunes.