Clerk: North Street project 'choking' The Short Stop

By Keri Brenner | The Olympian • Published June 24, 2008

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TUMWATER – Since North Street closed last month for major reconstruction, business at The Short Stop is so bad that its owners and staff say they have to fight off tears to stay on the job.

Clerk Myong Hee said she's not sure how much longer the convenience store can stay open without enough income to pay for new deliveries.

"This time of day, this time of year, we should be good — but there's nobody here," Hee said about 4 p.m. Tuesday. "Oh my goodness, they're choking the store."

The $2.8 million reconstruction project — which involves adding new water and sewer pipes, road resurfacing, landscaping and adding sidewalks — has shut down a half-mile section of street until December between Hawthorne Street and Cleveland Avenue. Only local traffic is allowed in, and that is hazardous because of massive ruts, potholes and piles of rubble in the road.

The Short Stop, which has been at 905 North St. for 22 years, is the only business on the street affected by the road closure. Its owners said they had relied on commuter customers, but those have gone away.

North Street is a heavy through-street connector route between Tumwater and Olympia and is a prime access street to nearby Olympia High School. The Short Stop still can be reached by vehicle via Hoadley Street.

Devastated

Hee, a five-year employee of store owners Su Mae Kim and Heung Su Kim, said she and her bosses are so devastated by the loss in business that Su Mae Kim just sat sobbing in the store recently. Hee was close to crying Tuesday, describing how she offered to work for free for a month, but her bosses had too good a heart to accept.

"They said, 'Better we close down,' " she said. "'We have to pay you.'"

Hee said the owners, who, like her, are natives of Korea, have asked city officials for compensation for their losses but were rejected. City Administrator Doug Baker and Jim Shoopman, project manager for the city's public works department, could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

"The city people who work there get a paycheck; how come the store gets nothing?" Hee said. "That's wrong."

She said the store owners pay taxes and deserve as much consideration as city employees and residents.

"No paycheck to us, then they should get no paycheck either," she said.

Regular customers Brian Clauson, Raymond Thornton and Bobbie Fogle all said they were upset about the situation and would be saddened if the store closed.

"I love Su," Fogle said. "She knows us, and if my kids come in, and they're 5 cents short, she just says, 'OK,' and I pay her later." Fogle said there is no other place she would let her oldest two children walk to by themselves because other stores are on busy main streets such as Cleveland Avenue.

"It's real rough to get in here," said Thornton, who said he shops at The Short Stop every day. "I hope it doesn't close."

Clauson, 34, said he grew up in the neighborhood and has been going to The Short Stop since he was a child.

"I feel like something needs to be done; this is an injustice," he said. "If it was my business, I'd be really angry."