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A&A Records was a Canadian record store chain.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2014) |
A&A Records was a Canadian record store chain.
The company was founded at the end of World War II by Alice Kenner, her husband Mac, with the assistance of her brother, Aaron as A&A Bookstore after Alice and Aaron's first initials, at 351 Yonge Street in a building that had been purchased by Kenner and her husband, Mac. The family also founded the A&A Lunchroom in the same building. In the early 1950s, the store added a record section to sell LP records which were gaining in popularity among young people. Within a few years, record sales became the dominant portion of the store's business. In 1960, A&A Books & Records Company of Canada licensed several franchises across Canada and in 1971, the Kenners sold the business to CBS Records. [1]
In 1974, its operations consisted of the main store at 351 Yonge Street in Toronto, another flagship store on rue Sainte-Catherine in Montreal and six franchise stores in Ontario. The company also had two wholly owned subsidiaries: Glen Music, which had four stores in Alberta, and Glen Music Western, which had six stores in British Columbia.
By the end of 1974, the company decided to close its book business that was located in the basement floor of its flagship store at 351 Yonge Street, Toronto. The senior management consisted of general manager Rick McGraw and vice-president of marketing R. Bruce Wilson. Its offices were located above the retail store at 351 Yonge Street, in a small portion of the second and third floor. The second floor was classical department and the third floor was being used as the warehouse. The company itself was a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia Records Canada.
In the spring of 1975, the accounting office was relocated to 75 The Donway West, while the management offices remained at 351 Yonge Street.
In 1981 CBS sold its retail and wholesale pre-recorded music business to some of its former executives - Terry Lynd, Fred Rich and Dick M
The chain—having shed most of their unprofitable stores—emerged from bankruptcy under the ownership of Lincoln Capital Corporation. However, the corporation again filed for bankruptcy later in 1993, and was dissolved when its assets were sold piecemeal. Its remaining retail outlets were absorbed by other retailers, [2] with many of the remaining A&A stores being absorbed into the Music World or Sunrise Records chains.
In December 1993, the flagship Yonge Street store became a Future Shop, which later relocated to the nearby 10 Dundas East complex. The location was sold to Ryerson Polytechnic University (now Toronto Metropolitan University), and the building torn down in 2010, along with A&A's former rival - the nearby Sam the Record Man flagship store.
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