Customer Cory Smith barters good-naturedly with owner Mahmoud Haghighi at the Sequence Board Supply store in downtown Squamish.
“How much for the watches? $25 each,” Smith suggests.
Haghighi counters the lowball offer. “No, no,” he laughs. “The best I can give you… is $80 for both.”
Everything in the skateboard and snowboard store was at bargain-basement prices for its closing out sale. After owning the store for 25 years, Haghighi made his last sale and closed the shop for good on Monday.
Even though at 75 years old Haghighi is deserving of retirement, deciding to close wasn’t easy. It was his family that made the call, in fact, after Haghighi was in a serious car crash Nov. 1.
Haghighi had been driving southbound on Highway 99 near Lions Bay when a car heading the opposite direction lost control, flipped over the median and hit his vehicle.
Whistler’s Marie-Pier Champagne, 32, died in the crash. Her roommate was seriously injured. Haghighi was also injured.
“It was very bad because they came through me from the other side. They flipped my car. It was very bad,” he says.
Although the physical injuries are still evident – Haghighi often holds his chest, and standing seems painful – it is the mental trauma that has been hardest to overcome.
“I have bad dreams and I cannot sleep,” he says, rubbing his forehead anxiously. Through his insurance, he has been able to see a psychiatrist, but recovery will take time, he adds.
He can no longer drive past the spot where the accident happened without reliving the horror, he says.
His family says it was time to stop the commute up and down from the store to his home on the North Shore.
His friend Khosro Benham, who took over running the store while Haghighi recovered, calculated Haghighi has driven the equivalent of 29 times around the globe, going back and forth up the Sea to Sky Highway over the years.
Haghighi knows he is lucky to have survived the accident. “It is just a miracle,” says Haghighi, who moved to Squamish from Iran 50 years ago.
He raised his children here but moved to North Vancouver when his children moved on to university.
The experience has shown him the value of his friendship with Benham, who took over the store the day after the accident and has remained for the four months since to help run and then close the store.
“Fortunately my friend does everything,” Haghighi says, putting his hand on Benham’s shoulder.
“He came here and worked from 10 a.m. to 6, 7, 8 p.m., seven days a week.”
Haghighi now looks forward to spending more time with friends, his wife, three children and four grandchildren, he says, but closing the store is hard because he will miss customers like Smith.
Smith, 30, has been coming to the shop for 25 years, since he was five years old, he says.
Originally his mom brought him when the store was located by Howe Sound Secondary on Buckley Avenue, and later when it moved further downtown, beside the post office.
Although he now lives in D’Arcy, he made the two-hour drive to Squamish to buy clothes and shoes for himself and his children at the store in its third and final location on Second Avenue.
“It’s the best skate shop in town,” he says. “It’s always friendly.”
Everything he was wearing is from the store, Smith says, tipping his baseball hat and then pulling at his red and white t-shirt and track pants. “This is all from here,” he says, before heading out the door with his bag of purchases for the last time. “Everybody here, I will miss lots, I think,” Haghighi says, as he watches Smith go.
