Small businesses in a fight for survival
Kenny Wynn has spent 26 years in the gas station business, and has surely seen his share of ups and downs.
Tammi Jones-Seward opened her Middletown gift shop just a year ago, and is still learning to cope with the travails of ownership.
For the moment, both are struggling along with an increasing number of small businesses around the state to weather economic turbulence that can be a test of survival for small operators.
A steady cascade of painful punches — higher gas prices, electric bills, talk of tax hikes, eroding consumer confidence — is battering the bottom line. Some are holding on and hoping; some are shifting and adapting.
For others, it will prove to be the end of a dream.
Today’s razor-thin profit margins and grumbling customers were enough to drive Wynn out of the retail gasoline business entirely.
He has owned six local stations over the years, but recently sold his last one and switched to real estate.
“It’s not a pretty situation. Everybody makes money on fuel except for the retailer,” he said, joking: “I want to own a bakery where people are happy and buying things and smiling about it.”
