I was just visiting Long and McQuade's new location in Saskatoon. Its on 43rd Street in a building previously occupied by Crafts Canada, replacing their former 2nd Avenue location. Now instead of a cramped store they have lots of room, allowing for such things as closed rooms for playing guitar amps and acoustic instruments in, and simply more room for merchandise. They definitely needed a bigger space. I do have to wonder if they can afford a place like that, but I assume the folks at head office know what they're doing. One thing I'm a bit leery about is that they've got some of their guitars hanging quite high up. This is of course to keep the more expensive instruments from being banged up by folks casually trying them out. But I can't help but worry there will be accidents when the staff gets up on a ladder or footstool to get them down ie stuff getting dropped.

L&M probably would have had a new store long before this, but unfortunately the ceiling of their old store fell in several years ago. After the building was repaired I overheard one of the staff mentioning to a customer that the repairs came out of monies budgeted for an eventual new store.