Vancouver will lose one of its best newspaper and magazine stores on Sunday (August 28)

Mayfair News at 1535 West Broadway is the latest casualty to higher lease rates in the South Granville neighbourhood, not to mention the overwhelming power of the Internet.

For many years, it was the go-to place to find copies of British newspapers, photography magazines, the New York Review of Books, and even international fashion publications in foreign languages.

In its heyday before the arrival of the Chapters (now Indigo) store across the street, Mayfair News was bustling with customers eager to get their hands on reading material unvailable anywhere else in Vancouver.

Last year, it sold copies of the first Charlie Hebdo published after a terrorist attack on the satirical magazine's Paris office.

The looming shutdown of Mayfair News will come two years after an independent bookseller in the same block, Oscar's, closed its doors. Oscar's owner Sean O'Flynn said at the time that "internet technology" contributed to the store's demise.