Little Neck residents are continuing the fight to keep an “underperforming” Stop & Shop open in the community.
Weeks after a spokesperson for the grocery store chain confirmed that the shop at 249-26 Northern Blvd. would close its doors for good, locals started a Change.org petition, which has garnered 1,377 signatures of support.
“I have lived in this area for over 17 years and have always found this supermarket to be well stocked and the managers and cashiers to be helpful and pleasant. Not to mention the loss of jobs this closure will affect. We must try our best to keep this market open. Hopefully the landlord will reconsider and the residents will halt the closure of this market,” wrote organizer Beatrice Correa on the petition’s page.
Many in the community expressed concern over the store’s planned closure, saying that this Stop & Shop is the only grocery store “for miles” of the northeast Queens neighborhood.
“That’s a big loss. It was bad enough we lost Fairway in Douglaston. Now this. Hope they change their mind and stay open,” one QNS reader wrote after hearing of the news.
“Many rely on this location. Is underperforming the primary reason? How about this location is essential to our community, [especially] to our senior population. No other supermarket for miles,” Douglaston resident and City Council candidate Adriana Aviles wrote on Twitter.
A Stop & Shop spokesperson said that the store would stay open through 2021, but other reports said that the likely closing date would be “some time in 2022.”
The Little Neck supermarket opened in 2003 following the closure of Grand Union three years prior.
Other nearby supermarket options include Nature Farm Supermarket, and H Mart and North Shore Farms in Great Neck.
