Heavy Snow Season Hits Local Businesses Hard

It has been a tough winter for local businesses due to a series of snowstorms, freezing rain and sleet. During the worst of storms, many owners were faced with a difficult decision: to close or not to close?

, a local Italian restaurant, closed its doors this winter for the second time in 20 years.

“We’ve been here for 20 years and I’ve never seen a winter like this. We closed [during] that first…2-foot storm,” Brad Karsky, co-owner of Max a Mia, said.

Karsky and his partner opted to close the restaurant out of concern for the staff’s safety. Though the storm cleared up by dinnertime, they didn’t want to endanger their staff. Unfortunately this resulted in lost business for the restaurant. 

“If you’re a retailer and somebody wants a new dress, they’ll go the day after. They’ll figure out a way to get that dress. As a restaurant, you’ve lost that sale. You’re never going to make it up. It’s not like the next day someone is going to go out to dinner twice. You hope you make it up over the year, that’s all,” Karsky said. 

, which has been in Avon for at least 20 years, has also been negatively affected by increased snow this winter. Owners Sara and Peter Scott had to close their shop several times this season.

“You don’t want to risk life and limb to buy a toy. You might need to get out to buy those diapers or gallon of milk, but a toy can wait. Understandably so,” Sara Scott says. 

To rev up business and give people something to do while snowed in, she offered 20 percent off games and puzzles.

Maura Fitzgerald, managing partner of , said there have been times where the salon has been closed or open with only a skeleton crew this winter. 

“This past month I’ve opened on Mondays when we are normally closed,” says Fitzgerald.

This winter was the first time that Fitzgerald has opened the salon on Mondays.

John Vrakas, co-owner of Amici Italian Grill, says this winter has been “harsh on us.” 

“We definitely closed certain days. It’s a very hard decision to make, but you try to balance out whether it is safe for your employees to truck through the snow or if it’s even worth staying open,” Vrakas says. 

Big helpings of snow this winter have also created another problem for businesses: lost parking spaces.

“There’s no place to put it. When the plows come to plow our parking lots, they’ve taken up some of our spaces,” Vrakas said.

The staff has been parking across the street at , where overflow parking is also available for library patrons.

Local storeowners are eager to put this difficult season behind them and get back to business as usual.