Pickets forced a good man to close his Hubbard store

Pickets forced a good man to close his Hubbard store

EDITOR:

I was disappointed to read in The Vindicator that Nemenz IGA is closed. A huge crowd showed up at the council meeting one week ago in support of the store and at least two dozen people spoke in support of Mr. Nemenz.

The city of Hubbard should be embarrassed that we have let a man like Henry Nemenz leave our town. He did more to help Hubbard than a lot of us put together. He supported every organization that asked him, including the two-a-day feeding of our football team and made it possible for a Little League organization to have a banquet after the money of the organization was stolen. Shame on us. I am not proud to say that I am from Hubbard.

The pickets protesting against Mr. Nemenz gave Rob Patton of Patton’s IGA a difficult time also. That is why he left Hubbard. He could no longer support the high cost of a union. The application process for a job at Nemenz IGA was not a closed door affair; it was opened to anyone who wanted to apply. And since the Patton’s IGA had been closed for a while, Mr. Nemenz did not have to rehire anyone. Most of his workers at the Hubbard store were from Hubbard. He was a new business coming into town and was not obligated to rehire Mr. Patton’s former employees. Some of the pickets, protesting against Nemenz IGA, were already retired and some did not work for Mr. Patton long before he closed. The pickets that I talked to said that their main goal was to close the IGA store and let a Sparkle store come in its place. No one has any interest in coming into that store to reopen it.

I am happy about one thing and that is I no longer have to see the picket sign carriers anymore and now they will be unemployed until they are sent somewhere else to cause problems at another unfortunate business. There are better ways to make a living instead of causing more unemployment. Mr Nemenz’s wonderful employees are without a job thanks to the pickets. Shame on all of you.

BONNIE HARRISON

Hubbard

Watch out for swindlers

EDITOR:

The Sept. 5 Vindicator reported that a man approached elderly citizens in Boardman and Poland to trick money out of them. Also the local TV news reported the same. Yet this exact crime occurred in Youngstown on my street over a month ago.

A man in a red car on a Wednesday around 2 p.m. went to two residences on Pointview Avenue with the intention of swindling money from the occupants, both elderly and living alone. I was told about the first situation the next day from a resident on South Heights who knew about it, so I wasn’t sure what to believe. Then two days later residents on Pointview one block from me told me about the second occurrence. None of them reported it to the police.

From a Block Watch meeting I attended a week before all this happened, I learned whom to report suspicious activity to. So I called him. To my knowledge, neither victim has been interviewed.

It seems that this “man in the red car” may have bothered many more elderly residents, and also in other parts of town, than what has already been reported. I urge everyone to call the police immediately and maybe he can be caught and put away before something much more serious happens.

DIANA MURAR

Youngstown