Joey Le is grieving the loss of his longtime business in New West – but looking forward to new endeavours.
Le is the owner of Joey’s Video Stop on 12th Street, a business that was hard hit by thieves at the beginning of January. Police recovered some of the stolen DVDs, but not enough to allow the business to carry on.
“We lost 8,000 DVDS and the police have got 70,” Le says. “I had hoped they would have the computers and at least 1,000 or so of my DVDs.”
The movie distributor who supplied merchandise to Joey’s Video Stop indicated it could take up to $40,000 to replace the stolen DVDs, but the store’s two computers are irreplaceable; they have data dating back to 1982 and showing all the movies customers have rented.
“People come in and say, ‘Hey, did I see this movie before?’ I just go in and I can tell them,” Le says. “I have every single detail there about customers. For that loss, I have no idea how to serve. I don’t know what the people need. I have no information left. They stripped me to the bone because I have no means of helping others. It’s not about the DVDs – it’s about the service.”
As much as he loved connecting with the community through the video store, Le has decided to close shop. He’s renting the space at 936 12th Street until the end of February and will be in the store daily to say goodbye to any customers who drop by.
“It’s a time for me to grieve as well as say goodbye,” he says. “For others, something important is gone.”
Le has been touched by the outpouring of support from community members, some of whom have offered to donate hundreds – or even thousands – of DVDs to help him rebuild.
“People want to give the shop a chance,” Le says. “Without the computers, I can’t do anything.”
Once the initial shock of the theft wore off, Le had to do some soul searching about whether to carry on or move on.
“If you came into the store before and talked to some of the customers, they were my family,” says the New Westminster resident. “The shop is so wonderful. I laugh from the beginning of the day. I never have a minute to be upset. Some days, at the end of the night, I’m driving home thinking of all the jokes people say. You rarely see customers walk out of the store with an angry face. I make them laugh. We laugh with each other.”
Running a video store may not offer a huge income or carry enormous privilege in society, says Le, but he loved every minute of his job.
“I found my purpose. I tell people it’s a blessing when you find a job that you love to do,” he says. “At the end of the day, I had done something for my community, for the people around it. I have children after school nearby that ran up to give me a hug before they go home. What kind of job gives you that?”
Last summer, a young girl who attends a nearby school told Le she would be walking home from school on her own when her mother returned to work.
“I said, ‘look, don’t you worry. I’m in the middle of your school and your home – if anything happens to you, just walk back to my door and I will take care of you. I know your mom’s work number, and I will contact her,’” he says.
A week after school started in September, a teacher from the girl’s school visited Joey’s Video Stop.
“She said, ‘I want to meet you Joey.’ I said, ‘why?’ She said a student of hers had an assignment to write about the safest place on earth. One of the students wrote about the store, and she wanted to know why,” Le says. “I stood there and tears were rolling out of my eyes.”
Although Le has been quick to offer a smile or a joke to customers, he once suffered from severe depression and has shared his story with customers who are facing similar mental-health issues.
“When you are at the bottom, you can only go up. I was there,” he says. “We can take the journey together – call me, talk to me, laugh with me.”
Le, who currently lectures in communications for small businesses at Simon Fraser University, has a medical degree and a master’s degree. His varied work background includes working in Victims Services for the Vancouver Police Department and as a medical doctor – jobs that ended when he suffered depression.
“That was also a blessing,” he says of his five-year battle with depression. “Now, people come to me and say, ‘I feel so bad right now, I can’t handle it.’ One of the guys came to me and said, ‘Joey, tonight I come to say goodbye to you because you won’t see me tomorrow.’”
Le closed the store and took the man out for a cup of coffee, which ultimately thwarted his plan to commit suicide at midnight.
“We just laughed. I told him what had happened to me. He couldn’t believe it. I told him what happened, how it happened. We talked about things,” he recalls. “Guess what? Midnight passed. We didn’t even look at the clock.”
When the two parted ways after their coffee marathon, Le wasn’t sure what the man had decided to do.
“I didn’t hear from him for two weeks. I was keeping my eye on the news for two weeks, everyday,” he says of the fear the man may have followed through with his plan. “Two weeks later, guess who showed up at the door? He walked in – he was so tanned and happy.”
With connections like that, the theft may have made it easier for Le to move on to new challenges and close the shop. For the past few years, he’s been putting some of his savings into the city’s last remaining video store to keep it afloat.
“Sometimes you love something so much, but you start to realize it’s holding you down,” he says. “It’s a weight.”
While he’s made the decision to move on from the store, Le knows in his heart that his future will include helping people and volunteering in the community. After enjoying a month’s vacation in March – his first in 13 years – Le will spend the rest of the year completing his PhD in international relations and then embark on a new adventure.
“I’ll walk away with my head held high. When one chapter closes, a new one will open up,” he says. “In 2016, the city will see a new Joey come back – bigger and better. I don’t know yet what I am going to do. Something will come up.”
