It is sad days for many people that have been used to shopping at the 99 Cents Only store for quite a while now. Due to financial difficulties, changing consumer demands, and the rising inflation the 99 cents store will be shutting down and closing business all around the nation. The expected date of the shutdown should be on June 5.
The 99 Cents Only started when the founder, Dave Gold, who had a liquor store and put items at 99 cents, and it was a huge success. Eventually on August 13, 1982 Dave and Sherryl Gold opened the first 99 Cents Only store in Los Angeles. Everything seemed to be going good, the business had a lot of people coming and buying regularly and the people were satisfied. It was good until Covid hit and the pandemic caused chaos in the business. It led to many people being scared to go out and interact outside which led to less people coming into the stores. This led to them having to raise prices on some of their items. For example a bag of chips was 99 cents but due to having to make some profit they raised prices to one dollar and 49 cents. Soon it would go up even more to being three dollars for some chips. Sophomore Justin Jimenez said, “I remember when I used to go in and spend five dollars for everything now its like ten, it’s wild.”
Although we might be upset that this store is closing down, there is a little bit of hope still left. On April 7 of this year, Mark J. Miller the CEO of Pic N Save and the former president of Big Lots plan on rebuying the 99 Cents Only store and put it into business again. Freshman Leo Robles said, “They need to bring it back because that’s where I got all my snacks from.” So, we are hoping that the 99 Cents Only store comes back because it seems to be a place to get essential items for everyone.
