End of a local grocery store

| 2 Comments

As the owner of a local grocery store, news like this is never welcome. From The Bellingham Herald:

Dodson’s has closed. Will there be another neighborhood store in its place?
A longtime grocery store has closed after a potential deal to sell it didn’t come together.

Dodson’s IGA in Nugents Corner had a going-out-of-business sale over the weekend, closing for good on April 2. According to a sign posted on the front door, there was an interested buyer but a sale didn’t materialize. The store is at 3705 Mount Baker Hwy.

“We sincerely regret the inconvenience this means to you. We are still planning on selling the store, restoring a neighborhood grocery store to the community,” according to the sign written by the Dodson family.

The store, which had been in business for about 50 years, ran into financial difficulties because it experienced some internal theft, co-owner Ellen Dodson said last fall.

A gift certificate program was started where customers could pay ahead to help save the business, but it apparently wasn’t enough: A federal tax lien of $47,796 was placed on the business in late February, according to documents filed on Whatcom County government website.

The internal theft was covered in this article at the Herald from December 9, 2016 - an excerpt:

Co-owner Ellen Dodson told the Lynden Tribune last month that two employees were fired earlier this year for internal theft. Dodson, who declined to name the employees, believes the thefts took place over time, but the store’s security cameras only documented a two-week period. Store officials didn’t have enough evidence to press more serious charges than shoplifting, and insurance didn’t cover the losses. She told the Tribune that about $100,000 in cigarette purchases were unaccounted for.

I am very sad (and pissed - employee trust is crucial) but their store had about eight lanes all running a point of sale system. They should have caught this before it became a $100,000 problem. If the owners were not capable of reviewing the data, they should have at least seen that the numbers did not smell quite right and called someone in.

Nugent's Corner is about five miles from the Bellingham city limits - there are two large grocery stores close to them in town and a nice chain of independent grocery stores heading out the Mt. Baker Highway including Crossroads in Maple Falls.

2 Comments

Sounds like it's time to replace rumored costs with actual competitive bids.

The sale didn't happen because the fuel tanks from the old gas pumps have leaked, the soil under the parking lot is completely contaminated and is only a few feet away from the well! Minimum cost to dig up the parking lot and replace with clean fill is $1 million. Heard this from our Harbor Wholesale rep on Wednesday. No one is going to buy this mess!!

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