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• Black-market smokes threaten to snuff out ‘the dep'  

Quebec's iconic corner stores, sources of livelihood for many new immigrants, survived suburban sprawl and supermarket competition - but the rise of contraband cigarettes is rapidly driving them out of business

There was always a grim math to owning one of Quebec's iconic dépanneurs , the ubiquitous corner store that rewarded mom-and-pop owners with long hours and small profits.

But the dep, as the stores are often called in Quebec English, survived in the 1970s and '80s as customers fled to the suburbs and, in the 1990s, as mega-supermarkets and 24-hour chain stores mushroomed.

Dep owners say cut-rate illegal cigarettes from Mohawk reserves are driving them toward insolvency faster than Wal-Mart or Couche-Tard ever managed.

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