LEWISTON — Brown paper covered the front windows of Aubuchon Hardware on Main Street on Monday — a sign simply stating “store closed.”

“Last Monday was when the decision was made,” District Manager Ryan Lamb of Durham said, although on the corporate level “the decision might have been made last year for all I know.”

“We put the addition on and sales grew after the addition but not to the extent that we needed it to,” he said.

The store is at 671 Main St. next to Paris Farmers Union.

“The workers will all be relocated within the company,” Lamb said. “We have a store in Lisbon Falls, we have one in Augusta and we got one in Portland.”

Full-time employees have been relocated and the Human Resources Department will work with employees to make sure everybody has a job. Part-timers have also been taken care of except one known exception where commuting is an issue, he said.

In the end, Lamb said, “Sales weren’t enough to support the expenses — unfortunately that’s what it boils down to. I ran this store back in the ’80s and it was a very successful store; it was very good to us.”

With the rise of big-box home improvement stores, he said, mom and pop businesses are having a hard time keeping up. “Just not enough of the pie left in this town,” he said.

Lamb is based at the Lisbon Falls store and oversees 16 locations throughout Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

dmcintire@sunjournal.com

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