Update on Paper Zone

Written by Dave Gallagher | The Bellingham Herald | December 29, 2011

I received a call back from Christina Waterhouse, a regional manager from Paper Zone, who gave me a few more details about the closure of the eight stores in Washington and Oregon, including Bellingham. Here’s a (link) to the earlier post.

Here’s an update:

– The Bellingham store will remain open until the inventory is sold or through Tuesday, Jan. 31, whichever happens first. It will have normal store hours.

– The company had 67 employees, while Bellingham had six.

Waterhouse said company sales had been dropping by 6-to-8 percent annually and the company simply couldn’t sustain those loses.

“We tried to weather the (economic) storm,” Waterhouse said. “If the economy was different, maybe we would have a different story. It’s sad because we know we have customers that love our stores.”