PORT ANGELES — The rock-bottom prices advertised by Saar’s Market Place Foods just east of the city limit were not enough to keep the discount-priced supermarket afloat.
“The store is already in the close-out process,” corporate general manager John Hames said Tuesday morning.
Hames was helping customers and employees just a few hours after a close-out sale began.
The sale is expected to last up to four weeks.
Then, Saar’s will close for good, he said.
United Food and Commercial Workers Local 21 in Seattle, which represents Saar’s workers, was told Monday about the impending closure, said Tom Geiger, communications director for the union, after contract negotiations fell apart last week.
Twenty-five employees will lose their jobs at the 2343 E. U.S. Highway 101 business.
And regular customers will lose a place to shop.
Ralph Johnson, 76, of Port Angeles was leaving the store Tuesday morning with groceries, including a brand of tomato-shrimp cocktail he said was available only at Saar’s.
“This is my favorite store,” Johnson said as he walked out of the store and stood under banners that blared “Store Closeout Sale — Everything Must Go!!”
“A lot of stuff you can’t get no place else,” Johnson added.
Johnson said he’s been shopping for discount foods at that location for about 30 years and buys goods at Saar’s twice a week.
The store was discount-oriented Stockmarket Foods before it was purchased by Saar’s Inc. 14 years ago, Hames said.
Sung Kim of Sequim, owner of Okasan Japanese Restaurant in Port Angeles, said the closure of Saar’s points to the downturn in business activity in Port Angeles.
“This town is almost, like, dead,” Kim said before he drove out of the parking lot.
Was Saar’s affected by the October 2010 opening of the Walmart Supercenter — which includes a large dscount-priced grocery store area — about a mile east of Saar’s?
“I would say the comment would be that additional competition is too much for Port Angeles,” Hames said.
“It was already ‘overstored’ before additional competition came in.”
Hames said Oak Harbor-based Saar’s Inc.’s nine other stores in Washington state are in no danger of closing.
But other trouble may be brewing for Saar’s Inc., suggested Geiger.
The union may file an unfair labor practices complaint over the company’s alleged unwillingness to negotiate on a wage offer during contract negotiations.
Geiger said Saar’s was seeking employee wage cuts of up to $4 an hour, and the union made a counter-offer of $1-an-hour wage cuts.
Accepting the company’s initial offer would have meant workers would lose $5,000 to $10,000 in annual wages, Geiger said.
As such, the offer “was just too extreme to be able to accept,” Geiger said.
“We went into that recognizing the challenges of the sales for that particular store, especially since the Walmart had gone in, with essentially two goals: to preserve the jobs of workers in that store and to preserve that shopping choice for people in the community,” Geiger said.
“You can’t go into formal contract negotiations and put an initial offer on the table and never move,” Geiger said, adding that another complaint may be filed against the company for allegedly not abiding by the 30-day notice he said was required of employers to tell employees they are losing their jobs.
Hames would not discuss the potential for an unfair labor practices complaint.
“We made them an offer, and it never went to a vote,” Hames said.
“They made a counter-offer, and that was not what we needed to keep this store open. We gave them what we needed to stay open, and that was it.”
The close-out process at the 40,000-square-foot building includes 30 percent off for meat and produce and 10 percent off other items.
The building, owned by Saar Properties LLC of Oak Harbor, has a 2010 value of $898,524, according to the Clallam County Assessor’s Office.
Greg Saar, the owner of Saar’s Inc., did not return a call requesting comment Tuesday.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
