So sad to see this downtown fixture leaving (from the Ithaca Times):
By Bill Chaisson
Mayer's Closing After 117 Years of Business in Ithaca
Posted: Thursday, May 8, 2014 9:00 am | Updated: 10:19 am, Thu May 8, 2014.
By Bill Chaisson
Mayer’s newsstand and smoke shop, which has been a business in Ithaca since 1897, will be closing its doors at 318 E. State St. at the end of June. The newsstand must close because Travis/Hyde Properties, the building’s owner, is putting in an elevator shaft, stairs, and a lobby into the rear of the building to serve its new upstairs tenant, the Downtown Ithaca Incubator. According to Frost Travis, the addition of the second entrance is a mandatory part of the zoning ordinance and the elevator is required by the lease agreement with the upstairs tenant. The lease with Mayer's ends July 11.
Jeff Rubin of Southern Tier News in Elmira Heights has owned Mayer’s since 1978. The business has been at the State Street location since 1963. Travis/Hyde purchased 318 E. State St. five years ago.
“I don’t know for sure,” said Rubin, “but my understanding is that he needs our back room and part of our selling space, and he has to cut through the concrete floor. I didn’t think we could be open for business through all that. It’s not adversarial; it is just the way the lease works.”
Rubin and Travis did discuss the situation, but could not come to terms. “Jeff asked me to send him the notice to vacate,” said Travis, “to stop the back and forth and to give him a date.”
Travis said that he and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance offered to work with Rubin to find a new location downtown. “He said that he couldn’t do a build-out quickly enough to move within 60 days,” said Travis, explaining that a build-out is what a tenant does to modify a new space to fit the needs of his business.
“No matter what happens,” said Rubin, “I’d like to see the institution of Mayer’s continue in whatever shape or fashion, either with everyone who is involved now or with someone different.” Travis said that Rubin had mentioned closing another one of his stores in another city for several months and then reopening it in the same location.
But Rubin has decided to “sell everything to the walls.”
“Certain fixtures are for sale,” said Patty Codner, Mayer’s director of operations since 1994. The magazine racks, she said, are the property of Southern Tier News. They will be emptied and returned to Elmira.
Some stock items are already getting low. They have sold out of some varieties of coffee beans. Mayer’s was well ahead of the gourmet coffee trend; they have been selling beans roasted in St. Louis since the early 1980s. They will now be selling the barrels as well as the beans.
All cigars are selling at 33 percent off and, according to Codner, they selling at good pace. Eventually the chocolate bars will go on sale as well.
Codner has watched the balance of sales at the store change over the years. With the advent of widespread Internet access the sales of newspapers declined, particularly foreign papers for which Mayer’s may once have been the only source. Tobacco is still a draw, said Codner, but sales have declined in response to health concerns and rising taxes.
Southern Tier News had stores in the Arnot Mall, Corning, Elmira, and Ithaca. The Arnot Mall store in Big Flats closed three years ago. The Corning store was open for a few years in the late 1990s. If the Ithaca store does not re-open, then Rubin’s in Elmira will be the last retail outlet.
Mayer’s is presently operating with reduced staff of four and a half employees, all of them working longer hours.
There is a book at the store where customers have been writing down their memories of the store, which Codner has found heartening in light of events. Codner invited everyone to come in add their own thoughts. •
Here's the link:
http://www.ithaca.com/news/mayer-s-c...9bb2963f4.html