Gorant Candies in Austintown, Boardman to close
American Greetings retains the manufacturing plant on Market Street, Boardman.
Staff report
AUSTINTOWN — Two more Gorant Candies shops will be closing after American Greetings sold its retail stores to a California company.
A worker at the Kirk Road store said that store, as well as one on U.S. Route 224 in Boardman, are closing. A sign at the Kirk store announces a 75 percent-off sale and says that all sales are final. About 20 people worked at the Austintown store.
An employee at the Route 224 store referred questions to American Greetings of Cleveland.
Frank Cirillo, an American Greetings spokesman, said that company sold its retail store operations including Gorant and Yum Yum Tree, effective April 17, to Schurman Fine Papers of Fairfield, Calif., which runs card and gift retail stores as Papyrus.
Schurman officials couldn’t be reached.
American Greetings retains the candy manufacturing plant on Market Street, Boardman, and Cirillo said there have been no discussions about closing that facility.
Three other Gorant Candies stores, on East Market Street in Howland, Elm Road in Warren and U.S. Route 422, Niles, continue to operate. They are Hallmark Gold Crown stores.
They are operated by Steve Chelekis and Perry Macheras, relatives of Charles Gorant, the company’s founder.
Chelekis, Gorant’s brother-in-law, and Macheras, his nephew, became partners in 1969 when Chelekis relocated the store he had opened in Youngstown to Howland.
Gorant founded Gorant Candies in 1949 and sold the operation in 1986. He died in 2000.
At the end of February before selling to Schurman, American Greetings closed the Gorant store at 6999 Market St., Boardman. That followed a December statement from the company that it was considering closing stores because of a deteriorating economy. For its fiscal quarter that ended Nov. 28, 2008, the greeting-card maker reported a loss from continuing operations of $193 million.
Schurman will operate stores under the American Greetings, Carlton Cards and Papyrus brands, according to a news release from American Greetings.
American Greetings has purchased the wholesale division of Schurman, which supplies Papyrus brand greeting cards mostly to specialty, mass, grocery and drugstore chains, the release said.