The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON - By the end of the month, one of Anderson's long-standing merchants will be gone.
The A&K Wholesale store and its properties are up for auction Friday, part of a list of 115 properties in the sheriff's sale.
According to the official listing of businesses up for auction, A&K's store at 2530 Broadway, and another property at 3841 N. Indiana 9, are both selling at a minimum bid of $633,687.09.
Terry Ancil owns the A&K Wholesale store and said the business will close its doors for the last time on Jan. 31.
While a typical sheriff's sale listing for the month includes homes across the county that have fallen into foreclosure, this month's listing also includes a second business foreclosure.
Two properties listed as Gardner Floor Care Inc. owned by Rick Gardner are also up for auction, with a minimum bid of $163,165.81.
All four of the properties up for auction, according to the owners, are the victims of a failed economy.
Ancil said his business has dropped steadily over the past five years, losing 15 to 20 percent of the store's customers with each passing year.
The store, which sells gift items and novelties at wholesale prices, can no longer meet the demands of today's buy-only-what-you-need market, Ancil said. "Our items are not a necessity. We're gift items so we're eighth or ninth on the list. They have to buy food, clothes and gas. People are just running out of money."
Ancil started the A&K store in 1969 with his father, Harold. Over the years, the Ancil family's lives revolved around wholesale goods. Ancil's children, nieces and nephews all worked at the store through high school, creating many family memories within its walls.
Now, as Ancil prepares to shutter the family shop and forfeit the potential he and his father saw in it 40 years ago, he admits that it's an emotional time. "It's sad ... I've been sick to my stomach."
Shoppers who make it to the store before the end of the month will get the best deals around town as the store tries to clear its shelves, he said. "Everything is half off right now."
The store truly began struggling two years ago, according to Mickey Ancil, Terry's brother. Mickey worked in the store growing up and was laid off from his own family's business when times got hard. He and about 30 other employees were laid off over the past two years and the store now only has two on its payroll, Mickey's wife and his nephew.
Mickey estimates that the store has seen a 95 percent drop in sales in the past two years.
Mickey said the business has long been a charitable donor in the community and Anderson will suffer when the shop closes. "It's not just a business going down, it's the whole community."
Things have been dwindling at the shop for a while, he said. "We've just been taking baby steps backwards and we're at the door now."
The story of Gardner's Floor Care falling into foreclosure is a similar one.
Connie Gardner is part-owner of the two businesses listed for auction and said the floor care shop was ended about a decade ago when the owners decided to direct their interests toward construction. The buildings, she said, remained in the original name on the deed but were rented out to other businesses.
Over time, a taxi service, detailing shops, a graphics and design shop, a tanning salon and beauty shops were all housed in the two properties.
Now that the economy has tanked, she said, no one wants to rent the properties and the Gardners can no longer afford to pay the mortgage.
The Gardners are now successful in their construction endeavors, operated out of a separate building, but won't be able to save the properties from the auction block.
Terry Ancil said he and his family are selling their home to downsize as he is now in his 60s and can no longer cling to the shop that sustained his family for four decades.
"In today's economy, you have to move forward in order to live and survive."