Should financially-troubled IGA store be closed?

The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe will hold a special meeting next Wednesday, Sept. 23 to ask their membership what the future of the First Americans IGA store is. According to tribal council, the store is losing money and the Tribal General Fund is paying to keep it open.

At the special meeting, tribal council will seek opinions from community members and discussions will take place regarding a few options the tribe has. One option is to close the store and make use of the building in some other form. Another option is to continue operating the store with funds coming from the TGF. Other middle-of-the-road ideas that have been suggested include reducing the size of the store to roughly half to make it more efficient, which in turn could lead to lower prices.

“The store was way too big,” said Sub-Chief Ron LaFrance. “It’s 52,000 square feet and most (community grocery stores) are less than 20,000.”

The SRMT purchased the IGA two years ago with plans to use it as an office building. However, the community reached out to the chiefs following the building purchase and said they wanted and needed the convenience of an Akwesasne grocery store. However the store was already having difficulty breaking even and those problems continued.

The tribe has made efforts to turn the store’s numbers around. However, a significant amount of funding has had to come from the TGF to keep it running. Exact figures will be available at the meeting.

Community members at the SRMT’s monthly tribal meeting Saturday told tribal council that the store needs 100 percent support from Akwesasne customers, many of whom have continued to purchase their groceries at the low-price giant Wal-Mart or Hannaford.

“The question is going to boil down to, ‘Do we keep the store or do we not keep the store,” said Sub-Chief Stacy Adams.

The meeting will be held at 5 p.m. at the SRMT Community Building.