Crafty Ladies Lose Battle For Business On Main Street
Lynndi Lockenour
While Cheri Brownlee is busy packing boxes away, a few customers enter the store to browse merchandise which has been marked down 60 percent. An incoming customer asks, “Are you going out of business to retire?” and Cheri politely replies, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Cheri is co-owner of Crafty Ladies, a small gift and knick-knack store located at 335 South Main.
The truth is, Cheri isn’t going out of business because of retirement, she going out of business because she says business owners aren’t getting the help they need from the city. Cheri also said tour buses no longer come through the area like they did 3 years ago when she and her business partner Marta Glynn first opened the store. “When we first moved down here there was at least one if not two or three tour busses a day stopping on Main Street,” she said. “Now we are lucky if we see a couple a week.”
Cheri believes that this decline in the number of tour busses has something to do with bus drivers getting a kickback from the casino for bringing passengers there instead of down town. “I know that each driver makes $50 for dropping of a load of people at the casino,” she said. This combined with the lack of advertising is what Cheri calls a deadly dose for Main Street.
City advertising is something Cheri feels would help benefit business owners on Main Street. “We need them to advertise for the businesses as much as they do for that damn boathouse and casino,” she said. After all the taxes and rent most business owners pay to be in this area, Cheri said the least the city could do is advertise Main Street more effectively. “We need more posters up at rest stops and travel locations,” Cheri said. “People need to know about us.”
Cheri said when she and Marta first opened the store they were able to make decent money from the business, but in the last year she said things have gone down hill dramatically. “Our first Christmas here was amazing,” she said, “but the next year we were down 60 percent compared to the year before.” Recently people have started coming in, but Cheri said that is most likely because every item is drastically marked down.
Cheri and Marta were thrilled when they first opened the store to finally be in business. “It was such a relief not to have to rely on craft shows anymore,” Cheri said, “we were so enthusiastic about having our own place.” Though Cheri said she hates to give up, she feels as though there is no other choice. “This wasn’t just something I did on the side,” she said, “This was my livelihood.” Cheri even sold her house to continue the business, but it has been so bad recently that Marta returned to what Cheri calls “the working world” in order to try and keep the business afloat.
Cheri plans to keep the store open until Sunday, August 21 and will come to a close at the completion of The Festival of the Little Hills. After finishing up things with the store, Cheri said she guesses she’ll go back out into the working world. “Trying to find another job at my age isn’t going to be easy,” she said, “but I have no other choice.”
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