LIVERMORE – A popular convenience store with an eating area where community members met to discuss the hottest issues has closed.

Employees of T.J.’s Kwik Stop on Route 4 were told two days before the store closed that they would lose their jobs, said Norma Luciano, a former employee. Luciano and her husband, John, and Tom Cornelio and his wife had owned the store for several years before they sold it to Ralph Ferguson of Poland in 2000.

Neither Ferguson nor his son David, who managed T.J.’s, were available for comment Tuesday.

The store closed Jan. 10. Besides selling staples and food, it also sold gas.

Luciano said there were financial complications.

“We kind of saw it coming,” Luciano said. “He didn’t have any gas for two or three weeks before it closed. He couldn’t seem to work things out with the gas company.”

There were eight to 10 employees, Luciano said.

“Everybody loved it,” she said. “We had customers crying. We all cried. It was a community gathering place.”

Livermore Administrative Assistant Kurt Schaub said the town wasn’t notified of the closing.

“We don’t know what happened,” he said.

Schaub said a store employee did come in to tell officials that employees received termination notices.

RMF LLC, the name of the business listed in town tax records, pays $10,000 in taxes to Livermore, $4,500 in real estate and $5,500 in personal property, Schaub said.

The store had recently expanded, he said.

He called the closing is a loss to the community.

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