Shop Smart in Eureka will close “before the end of the year,” said Grant Lunde, a spokesperson for the parent company C&K Market. 

“Eureka was not one of our better sales stores,” he explained. But Eureka is only one of 16 stores that C&K will sell or close. Shop Smart in Crescent City is also closing down. The company which filed for Chapter 11 today is planning on relinquishing control of up to one third of its markets.

About 20% of the workers across the company will also be let go. About the employees of the store  in Eureka, Lunde said, “we will try to accommodate as many as possible in other stores.”   But, he said, some will have to be let go. The company, he stated, would try to help the employees who are let go find other employment.

The Eureka store is the only one of C&K’s grocery stores scheduled to close in Humboldt County. However, in October, the company announced that it would sell its pharmacies. However, Lunde was unwilling to indicate what would be happening with the pharmacy at Garberville store. “The deal,” he said, “has not been signed. The deal is still pending.” 

The pharmacy is critical to the Southern Humboldt area. The nearest pharmacy other than the one in Garberville is in Scotia nearly 45 minutes north. 

An employee at the Pharmacy Express at Ray’s Food Place in Garberville refused to answer any questions about the future of the business and said information about the pharmacy was private. When asked to clarify if what she was saying was that the community had no right to know what was happening to the pharmacy, she stated firmly, “Exactly.”