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Forest Lake Ford closes April 9; FL’s Big Dollar Store in last days |
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Wednesday, 16 April 2008 |
Wednesday, April 9 was the end of the line for Forest Lake Ford, 231 SW 19th St.
The car dealership officially went out of business last week and by Friday, most of the remaining inventory of cars and trucks had been hauled away.
A sign posted on the door indicated the dealership would not reopen in the foreseeable future.
A second Forest Lake business is also in its last day.
The Big Dollar Store at the Lake Shoppes, 808 S. Lake St., is also going out of business. No official closing date has been set but the store is in process of clearing out inventory and is expected to be shuttered by the end of the month. A liquidation sale is in process.
Big Values Inc. of Fridley recently announced that it will close its regional chain of 10 dollar stores and Big Values stores in Minnesota and North Dakota. Eighty employees will be out of work.
Published reports indicated Big Values Inc. would likely file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
The company explained that its operations were hurt by the rising costs of fuel and food that made it difficult for the chain to realize a profit.
Forest Lake Ford has been dogged by financial problems for the past several months.
In February, the dealership filed a voluntary petition for reorganization under Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in St. Paul.
American Express had earlier gone to court to freeze nearly $4 million in assets and property of Forest Lake Ford, alleging in a lawsuit that the company used an American Express charge card in 2007 to obtain just over $4 million in cash and had failed to repay more than $3.8 million.
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