In the eight years she has owned Coquitlam Florists, Catherine Polonio has helped some of her customers enjoy their best moments and endure their worst.
Now it’s her turn.
Polonio is relocating the flower shop that has been a fixture in downtown PoCo for 68 years after negotiations with her landlord for a new lease broke down. The last bouquet will likely go out the door at the end of May.
While Polonio hopes to reopen at a new location at the Oxford Market, she says it won’t be the same.
“I’m heartbroken,” she says. “I love my community. It’s like a big family down here.”
And as that downtown family’s local florist, Polonio has helped them tough times like the death of a loved one and celebrated joyous occasions like a wedding or birth of a child.
Then there was the woman who came into the shop after the death of her father even though, she told Polonio, he didn’t like flowers — he was a hardscrabble guy who loved his cowboy boots.
Polonio asked the grieving customer to bring in the cowboy boots and she built a flower arrangement in them.
“If we can make it that much more special, we try to,” says Polonio, who’s a bit of an accidental florist. She bought the shop when she saw it listed in an online classified ad as she was working as a medic in the B.C. oil patch. She took the leap even though her floral experience consisted of little more than an “interest in flowers and craft” and one arranging course she took “way back when.”
Instead she relied upon the patience and guidance of her staff, one of whom is still with her, and the embrace of the tight-knit downtown business community.
“They’ve become friends,” says Polonio of her commercial neighbours. “You look out for each other. You notice if another shop is closed for the day and you try to help out.”
Never more so than after the two massive fires that devastated the downtown core in the last two years, says Polonio, who sits on the board of the Downtown Business Improvement Association. And though she’s optimistic about the city’s plans to revitalize the area, her little shop won’t be a part of it.
“Change is hard,” says Polonio. “You’ve got to roll with the punches.”
