San Francisco Gifts

San Francisco Gifts was a novelty gift shop, similar to Spencer Gifts that operated in most Canadian provinces. They were once a successful mall retailer, but due to competition from other stores and some controversies, all of their stores were gone by 2011. 
== History ==
The first San Francisco store opened in 1981 in Edmonton, Alberta. https://www.bloomberg.com/profile/company/6896981Z:CN Its founder was Barry Slawsky. After the success of the first location, Barry quickly began to franchise his stores in other Canadian malls. 
San Francisco stores followed a very similar layout to Spencer Gifts. Various novelty items, gits, clothing, and toys would be at the front of the store, and more mature items would be found at the back of the store. https://gonzobrigadoon.wordpress.com/2021/02/01/article-an-intimate-history-of-san-francisco-gifts/
For many years, San Francisco Gifts had success in Canada as one of the main stores in its category, through expansions, they had stores stretching all the way to Newfoundland & Labrador. 
In 1997, Spencer Gifts entered the Canadian market, https://www.spencersonline.com/content.jsp?pageName=About this started a decline for San Francisco Gifts as there was now a larger American competitor going against them. 
At San Francisco Gift's peak, they had over 85 stores in Canadahttps://www.newspapers.com/article/calgary-herald/33135629/, this includes their spin-off store called San Diego which operated in certain parts of Canada. By 2006, they only had around 50 stores. 
In 2003, San Francisco gifts had a big controversy when a person bought a lamp from one of the stores. The person plugged the lamp in, and within an hour, the lightbulb had turned black, the plastic on the lamp started melting, and it was emitting smoke. The person went back to the store and the employee offered a replacement lamp instead of refunding them for the faulty lamp. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fake-labels-give-consumers-false-sense-of-safety-cbc-report-1.582460
The person contacted the fire commissioner in their area, and he inspected the lamp. He noticed a UL sticker on the lamp which is put on products that are tested to be safe and not faulty. The issue was that UL had never actually examined this lamp, this meant the UL sticker was fake.
Because of this, the RCMP went to many different San Francisco stores and the HQ of San Francisco and found more fake UL stickers and faulty products from China. 
In 2004, San Francisco Gifts was charged for these illegal acts, but since the lamp never actually caught on fire or killed anyone, they were only fined $150 000 dollars. 
Throughout the 2000s, San Francisco began to decline and close stores. The last store closed around 2010 or 2011, marking the end for San Francisco Gifts.
== See Also ==
* Spencer Gifts - Former competitor 
Category:Canada
Category:Defunct Mall Retailers
Category:Defunct
Category:Specialty stores
Category:Atlantic Canada
Category:Retailers
Category:Companies
Category:Franchises
Category:Brands