Four years after opening her boutique gift shop on Main Street, Kristine Harder has decided to pull up stakes and move her business to Skagway.
Harder said Buckshot & Bobby Pins will close Jan. 1. She has secured a space at 7th and Broadway in Skagway, which will open April 1.
Sluggish sales and a dilapidated downtown corridor drove Harder’s decision to move, she said. Though rent will cost $5,000 more annually in Skagway, Harder said she expects to make more money because of the steady stream of tourists from cruise ships.
“I never thought it would be this bad to have a business in this town,” Harder said.
Though she has a small, solid core of Haines customers, most of Harder’s sales come from regional visitors like Canadians.
“People from Skagway come in my store, people from Juneau come in my store, people from Whitehorse come in my store, and they go, ‘This is the greatest store. I love this store,’” she said.
Harder, who serves on the Downtown Revitalization Committee and is a former board member of the Haines Chamber of Commerce, also has tried to address the giant vacant building across the street from her business, but to no avail.
The former Coliseum Theater building, owned by Gross Alaska, Inc., has been vacant since 2009. In 2012, Harder pushed the Haines Borough Planning Commission to put a legislative prohibition on boarded-up buildings in the town’s commercial core.
“It was shot down,” Harder said. Instead, the commission agreed to send a polite letter asking the owners to take down the plywood.
The building discourages visitors from approaching Main Street, she said. “It’s a drain on the community to have empty buildings.”
Babbling Book co-owner Liz Heywood will now have vacant storefronts beside her and across the street.
“To me, this is a wake-up call that a local store and house owner would find it more cost-effective to pay for rent and housing year-round in Skagway to open there for just the summer than to have a store open all year in Haines. The bottom line is that Haines is a hard place to have a year-round business these days,” Heywood said.
Too many people are choosing to spend what disposable income they have online or in big box stores in Juneau or Whitehorse, Heywood added.
“Until we as a community make a conscious effort to support the local businesses that in turn do so much to support the community, I think we’ll see even more businesses in town just open seasonally or close entirely, which will be a real loss for the town,” Heywood said.
Rod Hinson, downtown business owner and vice president of the Haines Chamber of Commerce, said he understood Harder’s decision.
“I can see where it would be beneficial for her, and you can’t blame somebody for doing that. It was nice that she tried it here,” Hinson said.
Still, it doesn’t bode well for Haines.
“The more diversity we’ve got, the better off we all are,” Hinson said. “It hurts the whole community, because that’s one less place for people to choose from.”
Resident Jessie Badger, one of Harder’s core customers, said she buys Christmas presents and birthday gifts at Buckshot & Bobby Pins.
“I’m going to miss her a lot. I get a lot of stuff there for events and stuff. I really appreciated her being here,” Badger said. “I hope we can fill that space. She’s going to make a really big empty spot.”
Badger said she doesn’t know where she’ll go to fill the gap now. “I’m hoping somebody else moves in. I guess I’ll have to go to Skagway.”
Harder said she will keep her home in Haines and isn’t ruling out the possibility of opening another small shop someday.