After 36 years in the jewelry business in the Twin Cities, Sandy Kluh is waving a white flag to the economy.
The Kluh Jewelers owner made the news of his store’s impending closure public Wednesday afternoon, cementing what he termed as “three years of red ink.” The store won’t close immediately, but will close for five days starting Saturday to prepare for a giant liquidation that will begin Oct. 1.
“The combined closure of the Trans-Alta mine in 2006, then the flood next year, really set us back and we never recovered,” Kluh, 61, said. “Now you have the economy taking a huge hit, and it’s just not feasible to stay in business selling a luxury product that for many isn’t a necessity.”
The jewelry store, which is owned by Kluh himself and separate from the other Kluh Jewelers stores in Lacey and Aberdeen, employs four people and has seen its hours drastically reduced to weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Kluh said he realized in the spring that the economy might not turn around soon for his store, unable to sustain a continued loss in revenue since late 2006.
“It was a decision I really started thinking about earlier this year,” Kluh said. “We’ve seen our volume drop by more than 50 percent and that’s what made the decision final.”
Kluh Jewelers has been a mainstay of the Fairway Shopping Center, which was hard-hit by floods in 1996 and 2007 — the later of which inundated some stores with over three feet of floodwaters. The complex has seen a high turnover rate with businesses coming and going.
The store will significantly mark down the sale price of jewelry during liquidation and will sell all office equipment, the showcases and the vault which, for now, contains a “massive” amount of unsold inventory.
Kluh, who says he has spent his entire life in the jewelry business — working for his father in his downtown Olympia jewelry store as a youth — doesn’t have any immediate plans for his future. The only thing that is clear is that he will no longer be a jeweler, walking away from an industry he says has been turned on its head by competition from the Internet.
“I’m sorry to shut down my life’s work, and it’s something even a few years ago I never imagined I’d have to do,” Kluh said. “I’ll be looking for a new opportunity and keeping my eyes open for whatever comes along.”
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Christopher Brewer: (360) 807-8235
