Good spirits
As businesses reopen, package stores are starting to see a return to normal.
As Connecticut’s economy struggles to emerge from pandemic- related damage, local retailers remain cautiously optimistic that their customers will return.
“People are social animals,” said Terry Rogers, owner of Harbor Point Wines & Spirits in Stamford’s South End. “I think they want to be around other people and talk about what restaurants they’ve been to and other things they like.”
But the hope of a recovery is tempered by the hard realities of what has happened since mid- March, when an executive order by Gov. Ned Lamont shut down a majority of retailers.
For Laurie Acosta, the arrival of the pandemic in the United States in January ultimately sealed the fate of her second Red Owl Jewelry & Gifts location in Meriden’s Town Line Square shopping center. Acosta opened the store in October 2016, having started her first store in Cheshire at 205 Maple Ave. three years earlier.
“Once we saw that ( coronvirus reaching the U. S.), we began the process of starting to permanently close the Meriden location the last week of February,” she said. Foot traffic at the Cheshire store disappeared shortly after that, according to Acosta.
John LeToureanu saw a similar dropoff in activity on Wallingford’s normally bustling Center Street. LeTourneau’s vintage lighting sales and repair business, Wallingford Lamp & Shade, has been there for 20 years, he said.
“The streets were dead,” he said. “And April and May were brutal in terms of our business.”
LeTourneau reopned his business to pre- coronavirus hours at the end of May, after having done business by appointment only prior to that. The store, at 124 Center St., is open from 9: 30 a. m. to 5 p. m. Tuesday through Friday and from 9: 30 a. m. to 4 p. m. Saturday, he said.
LeTourneau is the only employee, but said his landlord hasn’t offered him a break on rent despite how much the pandemic may have ravaged small businesses.
LeTourneau elected not to try to obtain a Small Business Administration loan.
“If I don’t have the money now to pay it back, there’s no guarantee that I’m going to have it several months down the road,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a lot of people defaulting on these loans.”
The Red Owl reopened to the public earlier this week. But from mid- March until now, Acosta said she was forced “to become more innovative,” as well as to temporarily lay off five workers, who since have been rehired.
“We do home delivery within five miles of the store, which we had never done before,” she said. “We do curbside deliveries.”
Her online business, which started long before the pandemic hit, “has been doing fairly well,” Acosta said.
Both Acosta and LeTourneau are taking safety precautions for customers.
Customers entering Red Owl can take napkins from an outside dispenser and use them to grasp the door handle. Inside, there are touchless dispensers that squirt hand sanitizer for customers to use.
Red Owl has even expanded its merchandise line to include stylish protective face masks and hand sanitizer.
Acosta is sensitive to her customers’ concerns about the coronavirus: Before starting Red Owl, she had been a registered nurse and served as an immunization specialist with the 103rd Fighter Wing of the Connecticut Air National Guard based out of Windsor Locks. Acosta also said she has a challenged immune system.
LeTourneau’s public health precautions at Wallingford Lamp & Shade extend to method of payment.
If paying by credit card, LeTourneau takes the customer’s card with a disinfectant wipe, runs it through the card reader and then hands it back, wrapped in the the wipe. If a customers pays with cash, LeTourneau has them drop the money into a plastic bag that he then spritzes with a disinfectant solution.
Once the customer leaves, LeTourneau wipes down both interior and exterior handles of the front door.