GASSAWAY, W.Va. — Gassaway Mayor Richard Roach said he got a call at city hall from the Kroger Corporation announcing they plan to close their Gassaway store about the same time the news was delivered to employees of the store. A few days after digesting the news, it still has many, including the mayor, in shock.
“It’s got everybody in this whole county a little concerned because it was part of their life. It was an access they could get to from the southern part of this county and it was close. They only had to go to come to Gassaway and that’s where they would shop,” Roach told MetroNews Wednesday.
With the closure, Braxton County’s only grocery store option will be Walmart in Flatwoods, which for some will be a much longer drive especially from the southern end of the county.
Roach said while access to a grocery store is one thing, there was a greater concern for the 52 employees at the store.
“What about the employees who aren’t 65 and can’t retire? What if their insurance doesn’t cover them and they have somebody at home with a medical condition. That’s what I worry about now, if they close down how are they going to take care of the employees,” Roach said.
The store is the smallest Kroger outlet in the Mid-Atlantic Region and store officials explained the store had not been profitable for a while. The situation isn’t unprecedented. Smithers in Fayette County lost its Kroger store a few years back which was replaced by Grant’s.
Roach said Clay County was without a grocery store for a while as well, but managed to attract an independent grocer to their downtown in Clay. He hopes they can do something similar.
“I was going to talk to GoMart, they used to have the U-Pack just a little down the road and they were successful,” he explained.
The GoMart corporation ran the store where customers bagged their own groceries before Kroger arrived in the town. He said the city will definitely explore a replacement option for grocery shoppers in Braxton County.