There have been no official proclamations, but 2004 marks the 25th anniversary of an event that forever changed the movie-viewing habits of the city. In 1979, Videoland, the first video specialty store in Toronto -- and possibly Canada -- opened for business. At the time, movie rentals were virtually unheard of and a VCR cost as much as a used Datsun.
A lot of video outlets have since come and gone, Videoland included, but a few pioneers survive. Their arrival more than two decades ago in storefronts and strip malls introduced us to the cinema in our living rooms.
The now-defunct Videoland, which was located on Wilson Avenue west of Dufferin Street, was a video store, not a video-rental store, because in 1979 you couldn't just rent a video.
Instead, Videoland would "sell" customers a movie for $100 and then allow a series of "exchanges" at three-week intervals, says Salah Bashir, who helped his brother, George Bashir, get the business going. Mr. Bashir believes that Videoland was the first such store to open in Canada.
In those days, VCRs were big clattering machines that were marketed primarily as devices for recording TV programs -- and cost more than $1,000. Blank videotapes sold for an astounding $49 each.
And the movie-rental business was in its infancy and completely unsupported by Hollywood, which viewed it as a threat, so judicious terminology was employed to avoid the sticky issues of ownership and licensing.
As demand increased, prices dropped and the video-rental business began to seem like an industry that could stand on its own.
Ed Guca was doing all right selling movie posters at Movie Art Decor on Bloor Street West, but in 1981 he guessed his cinematically obsessed clientele might be interested in renting movies.
So he invested in an inventory of 42 titles. Business didn't really take off, however, until he put a sign in the window saying "Movies For Rent." Pretty soon things went crazy.
Mr. Guca laughs, in retrospect, at what was once considered a boom. "We had one weekend where we rented 12 movies. We couldn't believe it -- 12 movies!" The hot renter out of that first bunch was Alien, which at the time cost $2.50.
Movie Art Decor is still going strong today with more than 10,000 titles, some of which may have been bought with the $4,000 in late fees paid by one very forgetful but loyal customer.
If Movie Art Decor fell into the video-rental market, then Videoflicks made a definite leap. At Avenue Road and Lawrence, it was conceived specifically as a video-rental store in 1981 by Michael Kavanagh, who died in June.
Long-time employee and now Videoflicks owner Steve Cohen recalls that at the time, to rent a movie you had to pay a $50 membership fee.
In his 15 years at Videoflicks Mr. Cohen says the store's most reliable renter has been Grease. (Yes, Grease.)
Under Mr. Kavanagh's supervision, Videoflicks rode the boom years of the eighties, expanding to more than 30 stores in Ontario. Now the business is back to where it started, with just the original location (not to be confused with Videoflicks on Kingston Road).
By 1986, it was obvious that the video-rental business was worth serious attention, but that wasn't how Frank Skellas saw it when he started First Choice Video Club at Bloor and Ossington.
"I opened it as a joke," he says. Soon that joke had taken over his adjacent travel agency and the video store employed Frank and his wife Diana as well as several part-time workers.
"On a Friday or Saturday night, we would work so hard -- I wouldn't have done it for $20 an hour."
Now in their 60s, he and his wife aren't working quite so hard, but other things have remained the same. The price for one movie for one night in 1986: $3. The price today: $3.