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Highlands Today

Highlands Today > News

Publix closing

Suzanna Crean

Published: April 18, 2009

I am an angry, loyal Publix shopper and have shopped there for over 40 years. I learned about the closing of the Avon Park store in the newspaper, and a Publix spokesperson confirmed this. Part of her rationale for closing the store is that "it doesn't make sense to have two stores only four and a half miles apart."
Sebring now has two stores about five miles apart, Lake Wales has two stores about five miles apart and Winter Haven has two stores about five miles apart. Avon Park shoppers who are accustomed to running by their neighborhood Publix to pick up a gallon of milk or a box of fried chicken, on their way home from work, will now have to buy their goods at Winn-Dixie or Wal-Mart, neither of whom carries products of the same quality as Publix's goods; or they can drive all the way to Sebring.
This move to close the Avon Park store will cost Publix over half of their Avon Park customers, in addition to the customers in Sebring north of Sun 'n Lake.
Suzanna Crean
Avon Park