Everything must go: After 150 years, Templeton's gets ready for liquidation

The two Templetoncousins who own and operate the downtown St. John's shop bearing their family name can't blame the store's closure on one thing in particular, but say it was "death by a thousand cuts."

Signs appeared on the doors of the Harbour Drive shop late last week, sayinga closing sale starts Nov. 29.

"It's a tough decision but the writing has been on the wallpaper for a long time now," saidJohn Templeton, who owns thepaint and decor store with his cousin.

The last eight years has been abattle for the company, he added.

If you owe usanymoney please pay us.Because theretail store is closing,doesn't mean we're not collecting.- Dave Templeton

"It's never been easy, so many things. Box storecompetition, parking issues we've had, harbour tear-ups," said Templeton.

"We've gone through a lot and each time it hastaken another hit. And this hit of thedownturn in economy is just too much."

Templeton said paint sales to more than two dozen independentstores across the province dropped 20 to 30 per cent the last two summers.

"Sales are down.It's nota downtown thing, it's an island-wide thing," said he said.

• 'Poor sales island-wide' to blame for closure, says Templeton's owner

"Summerbefore lastwas terrible for paint sales. Julywas cold and nobody wanted to paint so we lost that summer. And so this summer, for what ever reason, a downturn in the economy or whatever, we lost that summer too."

But it's not just the paint the business is struggling with.

"With inventory you see here, it's like the fashion inventory.You can't sit on fashion inventory for aperiod of time and hope after a year or two that you're going tosellit," said Dave Templeton.

"It's too expensive to do, you have to liquidate it."

Everything must go

Doors open for the liquidation saleat 9 a.m. Tuesday, and Dave Templeton said everything must go.

"The sales will last as long as theinventory. We have $650,000 ininventory, at cost, toclear," he said. "It'd be nice to sell all that in one day, but we've never had that big of a day."

It's estimated it willtake a few weeks to get rid of the stock, and the Templetons willbe around during that time to collect what's owed more than$100,000 outstandingfrom contractors and homeowners.

"If you owe usanymoney please pay us.Because theretail store is closing,doesn't mean we're not collecting money," said Dave Templeton.

"We've had lots ofaccountswith people over the years and we really need to get that money in."

The Templetons said their future, and the future of the 10 staff at the store, is unclear, saying "the crystalball is broken."

Beyond selling off their inventory, the two have no immediate plans for future business.