Delores Olsen of Pasco is upset her neighborhood Dollar Store on North 20th Avenue will shut down Dec. 30.
It's so convenient, said Olsen, who lives a few block away and has shopped at the store for about five years.
Going to the other Dollar Store on West Court Street won't be as convenient, said Olsen, who relies on public transportation. It would mean waiting for an hour for a 10-minute ride on the bus, she said.
"A lot of people are really sad about (the store closing)," said Griselda Gutierrez, a part-time cashier who has worked at the store for about a year.
Employees learned about the impending closure about two weeks ago, she said.
"We were wondering what'll happen after the store stopped getting freight and order sheets." A few days later came the official announcement that the parent company Lakewood-based Liquidation Outlet Inc., is closing the smaller stores it owns, Gutierrez said.
Sales were down this year, but the store was holding its own, she said. The store, which has been open for the last 16 or 17 years, has lowered prices on many items as it gets ready for closure.
The store wasn't making volume sales, said Paul Miner, manager of Dollar Store in Richland. It was more like a neighborhood pop and candy store, which failed to attract bulk buyers, he said. Also, competing businesses opened nearby and lured away customers.
But the decision to close the store was made more than three years ago when the company opened a store at 3315 W. Court Street, he said.
The 6,000-square-foot store near the intersection of North 20th Avenue and West Sylvester Street is the smallest the company owns, Miner said. Compare that with the Court Street store, which is more than 14,000 square feet and it doesn't make economic sense to keep the small store open, he said.
Earlier this year, the company was forced to close the Kennewick Dollar Store, because the building owner wanted to make use of the space, Miner said.
The company is looking forward to opening a new Dollar Store in Kennewick, he said. "We want to be at the right location."
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They are among 37 stores in Washington and Oregon that are scheduled to be closed because their parent company, Liquidation Outlet Inc., is going out of business, and filed for Chapter 11 in March.
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