Photo by Carter Kegelman
While Canton has always prided itself on supporting local businesses, the community may find itself thrown for a loop with recent rumors of Canton’s P&C food chain being bought out by a larger company.
According to the Watertown Daily News, Price Chopper wants to buy out four of Penn Traffic’s St. Lawrence county P&C supermarkets. Last Friday, a filing in bankruptcy court between Penn Traffic and Price Chopper resulted in rumors of a $12.3 million bid but were never made official. Golub Corporation’s (Price Chopper’s parent company) Vice President of Public Relations Mona J. Golub said to the Times, “The offer referred to in the filing was a verbal offer made prior to bankruptcy court that is no longer on the table. I don’t know why they put that out. Right now, there is no formal offer.” The two parties are still in the negotiation process, with hopes of settling the issue by late December.
SLU Government Professor Joe Kling offered that the sudden interest in P&C from larger companies might be spiking because “to the extent that national corporations take over local and regional enterprises, as the national economy goes, so goes Canton. There is less available to us if we remain local (no Dunkin’ Donuts, Pizza Hut, Subway, Sunoco or Stewart’s shops), and so communities seek to attract the national chains, with their lower prices and incoming jobs.” Golub Corp. also quieted rumors of current P&C workers being put out of work, stating, “In the past, everyone who worked at P&C was interviewed for jobs and a substantial number were placed in positions in our company.”
The attraction for big corporations in the North Country is quite high. Despite the controversy surrounding the recently developed Wal-Mart Supercenter in Potsdam, bringing big name companies to the area has been a profitable venture.
Yet the Canton community is torn between giving in to bigger corporations and remaining local. Kling seems to sum up this dilemna, saying “If [Canton] remains outside the loop of the national economy, our own opportunities for growth remain limited. But if we hook in to the national economy in order to increase the flow of jobs and dollars, we become subject to the vagaries of that economy. Wall Street sneezes, we catch a cold. Wall Street catches a cold, we get pneumonia.”
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