Coming to terms

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

By Benjamin R. Bombard

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-It’s a hot Friday afternoon, and the flow of customers visiting the Westside Store and Deli is constant. As one car backs out of a parking space, another is pulling up next to it. Children and adults roll up on their bikes or stroll in off the footpath along Village Road. But the steady flow of traffic at the Westbank’s only neighborhood grocery store will almost assuredly come to a halt at the end of September. That’s when the doors of the Westside Store are due to close for good.

Store co-owner Jim Bean said the market’s imminent closure is due to an irresolvable dispute regarding the property lease with Winvesco Inc. The company owns the 6,000-square-foot building that has housed the store since it opened 30 years ago. Bean was unwilling to discuss the particulars off his dispute with Winvesco on the record.

However, a pamphlet attributed to Bean and distributed to customers at the market states that the store’s five-year lease was not renewed because he did not submit a notice of intent “in writing” to Winvesco by June 1. “It was my error in thinking we had a self-renewing lease and hence not performing this requirement,” the letter read.

The letter goes on to detail Bean’s dealings with Winvesco and notes that Bean was notified of the lease termination. “I simply made a mistake, a costly one,” the letter said.

Phelps Swift, speaking for Winvesco, said the company has had “numerous inquiries from very qualified people who want to run a market” in the building currently housing the Westside Store. “We assume it will be a market and we will make every effort for it to be a market,” Swift said.
According to Swift, Winvesco made “a very reasonable proposal” to Bean and store co-owner Cathleen Imo regarding their lease and they rejected it. “They came to us before and said they weren’t even sure they wanted to continue the business,” Swift said. He added that the company was “completely surprised and blindsided” by Bean and Imo’s decision to close the store.

“You have to understand: we’ve had over 100 tenants in the last 20 years and we’ve never had a problem like this. It’s very unusual,” Swift said.
The lease dispute, Winvesco’s silence up till now on their future plans and the store’s imminent closure have Westbank residents in an uproar. Disappointment and surprise are the most common sentiments expressed by market customers who shop there regularly to avoid commuting into Jackson for groceries and supplies. But the store’s closure comes as a particular shock to its 28 employees.

Imo said she and Bean help provide housing for many of the market’s Hispanic employees. The store recently held a “filing for unemployment party” to help both English and Spanish speaking workers correctly apply for unemployment benefits.
Fifty-year-old produce lady Marta Perez will be in an especially tough spot when the store closes. She has a 15-year-old son on dialysis, and if she loses her job, she’ll also lose her medical benefits.

Nick Scaffidi has worked behind the Westside Store’s deli counter for six months. He was banking on steady employment at the market heading into Jackson Hole’s fall off-season. He was even designing a new winter menu of 12 to-go sandwiches for skiers and snowboarders to munch on while they wait in the lift lines at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. “I’m not so worried about myself,” Scaffidi said. “The biggest thing is worrying about other people. A lot of our Hispanic employees don’t know what they’re going to do [for work].”

On a recent Friday afternoon, Patrick Berlin was buzzing around out in front of the Westside Store, dumping trashcans, picking up litter and straightening grocery carts. As Berlin was cleaning trash off a picnic table, a customer walking into the market to settle up her account there approached him. “Patrick! I can’t believe the news,” she exclaimed, holding Berlin’s arm in her hand. “Yeah. I’m really disappointed,” responded Berlin with a grief-stricken look. “We all are,” the woman said.

A Westbank native, Berlin has shopped at the market for as long as he can remember. He’s worked there for seven years – since he was 20 year old – and he said he’s devastated that he’ll soon be out of a job. “I can’t imagine life without the Westside Store,” Berlin said.

Bean says his store averages 800 customers a day, 1,200 on a busy day, and 600 on a slow day. Barring an 11th-hour resolution, the Westside Store will close on Sept. 30. If that happens, Westbank residents will either have to hit up Hungry Jack’s, a country store in Wilson, or  drive five miles to the nearest supermarket in Jackson, a commute that can take anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes, one-way, depending on the season.

As of Sept. 1, Westside Store placed a moratorium on customers charging items to their personal accounts.
Reyna Sanchez and Laura Carade work as housemaids in the Aspens and in Teton Village during the day. They often eat lunch at the Westside Store and said that they will either drive to Jackson or pack meals to work when their regular lunchtime market closes in just a few weeks.

Westbank restaurants would also be affected if the Westside Store closes. Betsy Campbell, the general manager at Calico Italian Restaurant and Bar, said that staff from the restaurant go to the market two to three times a week to buy all sorts of stuff, from batteries to birthday candles, jalapeños and fish.

Although some people expect former Westside Store customers to become Hungry Jack’s regulars, Don Terry, the owner of the Wilson store, isn’t so sure. “We don’t think it will affect our business that substantially,” Terry said. “People will probably head into town.”JHW

BENJAMIN R. BOMBARD
At the end of the month, this handsome pig will no longer welcome customers.


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Coming to terms | Planet JH News Article: General News

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