Under pandemic pressure, NovaScotian Crystal to close next month

NovaScotian Crystal is shutting down with COVID-19 at least partially to blame.

The company that bills itself as Canada's only maker of mouth-blown, hand-cut crystal made the announcement Thursday.

Owner Anne Campbell said it was a difficult decision, but it was made necessary because of COVID-19 and the cancellation of the cruise ship season.

"Public health protocols that we happily follow don't allow us to manufacture in the way we had been manufacturing," Campbell said Thursday evening.

She said the problem was that glass blowers worked in close proximity and would pass items back and forth between each other.

No cruise business

She said not being able to do that hurt the company's production. She said sales suffered without cruise ship passengers flocking to the company's location on the Halifax waterfront.

Campbell said this is different from the company's past financial difficulties when it had to restructure.

She said this is an orderly shutdown. The company will fill orders from existing stock and from the items they will be able to make until they shut down at the end of February.

The beauty of Irish-style cut glass

Retired curator Deborah Trask, who wrote a book about glass-making in the province, said NovaScotian Crystal is somewhat of an oddity.

It's been operating for 25 years, far longer than the first glass factories that opened in Nova Scotia in the 1880s and closed after about 10 years, she said.

"It's amazing that they've survived this long," Trask told CBC's Maritime Noon. "The market has changed … people aren't that interested in old-style, expensive, elite objects."

She said what makes the company unique is its Irish-style cut glass, which is "a very particular skill." People were able to watch the glass blowers at work at the company's waterfront location.

"It is magical to take really melted sand and turn it into an object of such incredible beauty, and they did that," Trask said.

Denis Ryan, renowned Irish musician, founded the company in the 1990s. He eventually sold his share of the company, but was still upset by the news.

"It's very sad for me because it's my little baby," Ryan told CBC's As It Happens.

Ryan said he spoke with some of the employees when Campbell called him with the news earlier this week.

"I think they're shattered but some of them aren't surprised," he said. "I've been out of the business for the last 10, 12 years, but they're great people and they are the spirit and the soul of the business."

He said he hopes this isn't the end of NovaScotian Crystal and he's willing to help the company in any way he can.

"I love all these guys," he said.

"I'm hoping to get together with them over the next week or so, to have a drink out of a nice NovaScotian Crystal glass and dream a little and see what happens, see what the future holds."