Letter from Applicant - Westshore Spring & 4x4 Inc.

Westshore Spring & 4x4 Inc. 1652 C Island Hwy View Royal, BC V9B 1H8

To whom it may concern,

My name is Leeandra Hinds. My husband Cory Hinds and myself own Westshore Spring & 4x4 Inc. We lease our location where the Ashley Furniture location is currently being built. I am writing this letter to bring forth some understanding as to why we are asking the Town of View Royal to approve our temporary sign application.

We are expanding along with 6 Mile Furniture. They are in the process of completing an approximate 1500 square foot retail shop right next to our current location. This opportunity to expand is truly a wonderful thing for our family business. We are in need of more space to flourish this business to a bigger and better establishment for our customers.

Although, we have had some major setbacks during the course of the construction project. Our computer system crashed and required a complete revamp, from new computers, to new software, and countless overtime hours to get inventory re-entered into the computer. This financially was difficult but, do-able.

The hardest part about these last few months is the lack of compensation from our landlords while all the construction has been going on. There have been countless full days without any warning, that our power was shut off, or the internet/phones down, rendering us completely incapable of preforming business.

We have had to provide our own signage on the street for our customers to see the temporary driveway. We were told that the signage would be provided to us, yet, that never seemed to happen. Too boot, multiples of signage have been stolen from the temporary fence out front costing us a considerable amount of money to replace. Countless customers a day call to see if we are still in business because they can not find us.

There was a misunderstanding somewhere in the construction crew, and they removed ALL the pavement out front of our shop, right up to our door. That was 2 months ago, they believe paving should be complete sometime in February now. Every one of our customers has to drive thru mud and walk thru it to get to our door. We hope that some of them are compassionate enough to return considering the frustrating circumstances. This in itself has impacted us financially because some customers have decided to not even get out of their vehicles on the horrendous rainy muddy days here. We lost out on many, many jobs because of this. The most disheartening, a $15,000 job on a ½ million-dollar vehicle because of the state of our environment.

We have had an employee leave us for his own personal reasons and, because of our sales being down by 35% from last year in the last quarter and 30% from the year before, it has made it impossible to financially afford another member of staff at this point.

We have expenses to take on with the new location, like any expanding business, and have had to make adjustments to our budget to make things work. The signage being a huge part of the expense is one, we hope, to put on hold while we play catch up over the next few months and into our busy season next spring/summer. Our business plan to achieve our goals is thorough, and well thought out. We feel confidant that with opening Saturdays as well as our current Mon-Fri, along with advertising and having a new space for our customers to shop in a real retail location, we will be able to succeed in providing ourselves and the community with very practical yet trendy signage for our business in the coming months.

Thank you for your time and understanding today.

Leeandra & Cory Hinds Westshore Spring & 4x4 Inc.