By John Burton
FAIR HAVEN — A little piece of the borough’s history is going away.
Laird Stationery and Printing Company, a staple in the borough’s West River Road’s business district for decades, will be downsizing with plans to eventually go out of business within about a year.
“We’re heartbroken,” said Bob Budnick, who currently owns and operates the business with his wife, Rose, having taken it over from his parents in 1994.
“It really wasn’t our idea,” to end the business, Budnick acknowledged. “We couldn’t reach an agreement” with the landlord on a new lease, he said.
With that, Rose and Bob, along with their dogs Rosie and Jessica – who the Budnicks maintain work in the store – will move from their approximately 3,600-square-foot space at 594 River Road in the shopping center that is home to an Acme supermarket, a group of other small retail businesses and a U.S. Postal Service post office later this summer.
Their plan is to move and downsize the operation to the approximately 1,000-square-foot shop in the same shopping center where the couple have for a number of years leased to run Candle Haven candle shop. The lease from that smaller location runs until mid-2017. “It’s only temporary. There’s no long-term plan,” to continue the business after that lease expires, Budnick said.
Budnick, 50, looked around the shop, with its rows upon rows of shelves brimming with every conceivable office and paper item one could want, plus other goodies, such as candy, balloons and toys. “I grew up here,” he said, recalling his days as a teenager when he helped out in the store.
The location has been a stationery store since the early 1950s, still retaining the name of an earlier owner. John and Jean Budnick, Bob’s parents, bought the store in 1978. John, who worked in real estate, bought it for his wife to run, Bob recalled.
Over the years Bob worked at the store, through high school, and then later as he was going to college at night. As his parents grew older, Budnick decided to take over the business, running it with Rose and the help of a handful of employees, including his sister, Debbie. Looking back on it now, Budnick thought “About 80 percent of my life was spent behind the counter here.”
Since operating the store, the Budnicks have expanded from the original location, acquiring a couple of adjoining stores when they became available and separating the candle business moving it to its own store in the shopping center in 1996.
The business warranted the expansion, Budnick explained. Laird Stationery has its retail component, which includes document shredding for 49 cents per pound – a popular service – and has a commercial office supply end, with the store having its own catalogue. Things had been pretty good as some customers who initially left to try the big chains eventually returned, Budnick said.
At a time when it’s becoming increasingly difficult for traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to continue in that vein, Laird had carved out a niche. “We monitor the customers’ needs,” adapting to the changes, Budnick said and that was how it kept going throughout the years.
Another way to continue to stay competitive was “We’re very price conscious,” he said, maintaining his prices are the same or, often, less than what’s offered from competitors from Staples to Amazon.
“We were able to endure,” he noted.
The one area that has fallen off, he acknowledged, is the printing business, with many people today doing what they need on their personal computers and printers.
“I dedicated my entire life,” to this, his family putting their all into it, he said. Not only are they heartbroken, but “our customers are heartbroken too,” he said, noting he’s had generations of locals as regulars to the shop. When he tells longtime customers “their mouths drop,” Budnick said. “They can’t believe as much as we can’t, that we’re not going to be here.”
Originally “our plan was to stay here and sell it to a local person,” when the time was right for Budnick and his wife to move on or retire, “to let the tradition continue,” he said.
“We just feel like the community will be losing,” when they close shop.
The shopping center is owned by Metro Commercial Real Estate, a retail real estate broker with offices in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Mount Laurel. A firm’s representative said in May that Metro didn’t want to discuss its future plans for the Fair Haven shopping center. And a call to its Mount Laurel offices last week seeking comment for this story was not immediately returned.
Budnick declined to comment further about the situation other than to say an agreement couldn’t be reached. But others with some knowledge of Metro’s plans, said the firm is looking to renovate and upgrade the location and seek high-end retail and restaurants for the site.
Raymond Daiutolo Sr., a U.S. Postal Service spokesman, said the current USPS lease for that shopping center runs until May 2017, and the service hopes to renew it, “but I cannot confirm that status of that until any negotiations have completed.”
For the Budnicks’ future, “It’s terrifying to lose both our jobs, our livelihoods, at the same time,” Bob said.
But they’ll make do, he said. And looking back “It was a good life we had here.”
