Blayne Lastman, chairman and CEO of Lastman's Bad Boy, greets customers during the grand opening event for the company's new store in Brampton, Ontario. - The new Lastman's Bad Boy store in Brampton, Ontario, is the chain's ninth location.
BRAMPTON, Ontario - Lastman's Bad Boy has opened its ninth store here in this city west of Toronto, the high impact promoter's first new outlet since 2009.
With 30,000 square feet of selling space, it's the second largest in the network after the London, Ontario, store.
In an interview, company Chairman and CEO Blayne Lastman said the onset of the recession in late 2008 and early 2009 put a crimp in his otherwise ambitious expansion plans.
"Business has been tough over the past four or five years," Lastman said, adding that Brampton has been one of the company's top expansion candidates for some time now. He said its population of 524,000 is somewhat underserved.
This store sports an updated interior with new fixtures, carpet and hardwood flooring - a design that will carry over to new stores when they are added to the chain. The product mix is also "a little higher end, with a better quality than seen in most of our other stores," Lastman said.
He also reported that traffic and sales to date have been much better than expected.
"Brampton has been the biggest opening in years. People started lining up at 5:45 the night before people were actually thanking us for opening there. It was a bit overwhelming," he said. "We met our projections for the rest of this year in the five days we were open."
In usual Lastman style, the event was featured on the local Breakfast Television program and was covered in the local media.
Among the cities under consideration for store number 10 are Hamilton, Vaughan and Newmarket, Ontario, but Lastman said it will be at least two years before plans are set. However, he said the company will replace its Mississauga, Ontario, store with a larger location in March or April.