West 49

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West 49 Inc.

Type	Retailer
Genre	Clothing
Founded	1995
Headquarters	Burlington, ON, Canada
Key people	Sam Baio
Revenue	▲ $195.3 million (2006)^[1]
Employees	> 1,000 employees (2005)^[2]
Website	http://www.west49.com

West 49 Inc., (TSX: WXX) is a Canadian retailer of apparel, footwear, accessories and equipment related to skateboarding, snowboarding and surfing. West 49 was established in 1995 by C.E.O. Sam Baio. The retailer operates 125 stores under seven banners across the country.^[1] It is Canada's largest skateboard and snowboard chain and in 2005, it was ranked the 82nd fastest growing company in Canada.^[3]^[4] West 49 Inc. operates stores under several names: West 49, Billabong, Off The Wall, Amnesia/Arsenic, D-Tox, Duke's Northshore, and www.boardzone.com.^[1]

They carry brands such as DC, Hurley, Quiksilver, Billabong, Element, Blind, Roxy, C1RCA, Emily Strange, Nixon, Mystery, Burton, to name a few, and also their own clothing line, West 49.

Staring in 2001, West 49 sponsored and hosted an annual international skate event, the West 49 Canadian Open. In 2005, Microsoft joined as a partner with West 49 to sponsor the competition.^[5] The West 49 Canadian Open is not on the World Cup Skateboarding event schedule for 2007.^[6]

In 2001, West 49 received criticism for an image of nude women placed in a magazine ad and on the front page of their new website.^[7] West 49 apologized, admitting that they shouldn't have run the ad, and replaced the images.^[7]

1 Locations
2 References

[edit] Locations

There are West 49 stores in the following locations:

[edit] British Columbia

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