Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Nearly one month following the tragic mass shooting at the Tops Friendly Market on Jefferson Avenue in Buffalo, plans are ongoing to have the store back open and operational by the end of next month.
"If you're looking for an exact timeline, I can't give one. But what I can tell you is that we should be opened around the end of July," said President and COO of Tops, John Persons, during an event on Wednesday at the Tops location on Elmwood Avenue.
According to Persons crews have been in the Jefferson Avenue location working to revamp the store from the inside-out. While there is an awful lot that still has to happen in order to get the store open, he says that Tops is dedicating extra resources to ensure the store opens sooner rather than later.
"The store, itself, was essentially emptied out of all product and the majority of the equipment. So all of that equipment has to go back in, all of that product has to go back in, and we just have to set the store up exactly the way you would see this store set up," Persons said. "That does take multiple weeks, and in some cases, in most cases, it takes multiple months."
While no firm date has been set for re-opening the Tops on Jefferson Avenue, Persons says they will make an announcement official when they feel the timing is sorted out.
Within the first week after the May 14 mass shooting, Persons was adamant that the Tops on Jefferson Avenue will re-open for the public as soon as realistically possible. However, the decision faced some backlash from the local community.
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While some people have called for the Tops to be moved to another location in the East Side community, Persons says that option would be a longer process to help the neighborhood than getting the store back up and running right away.
"As you can imagine, if we were going through the endeavor of trying to re-locate the store, that would be a 2-3-year process," he explained. "In our eyes, we thought the best way to serve the community was to completely remodel the store, give it a different feel, a different look, and be open in two months versus 2-3 years."
Others in the community have also expressed their opinions on the matter, saying that it is unlikely that they, or anyone else they know will step through the doors of the Tops on Jefferson Avenue given all the trauma that took place there.
In talks that Persons has had with people in the local community, he says a far majority of the feedback he's gotten is from those that want the supermarket re-opened as soon as possible.
"There aren't many food options down there, and we know we were servicing the community. We want to continue to do that," Persons said. "Our effort has been towards trying to re-open the store as soon as possible. We will do it in a respectful way, we will do it properly."
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In addition to those in the community, Persons has also been in contact with associates and employees of the Jefferson Avenue location. He says they continue to work together in order to better understand how they will be re-introduced to the store.
"If they don't feel comfortable going to that store, if a customer doesn't feel comfortable going in that store, we certainly understand it," Persons said. "We have plenty of other stores in the City of Buffalo and Western New York, but we want to make sure that in that neighborhood, the Jefferson Avenue neighborhood, we have a really good food store option for customers."
In the meantime, Tops continues to work with a number of food distribution center and other local resources, including the Resource Council of WNY and FeedMore WNY, to ensure the community is well-taken care of until the Jefferson Avenue location re-opens.
"I understand that the Resource Council is still open, maybe not every single day, but it is still open. We continue to support FeedMore WNY, and FeedMore is supporting a number of different food distribution sites throughout the community. We will continue to do that right up until we open," Persons explained. "FeedMore has the organization and the structure to be able to support all the food distribution sites better than we have, so we're directing all of our resources through FeedMore, and they're just doing a wonderful job of taking those resources that we provide and what others are providing, and distributing those throughout the community."
Wednesday's event at the Elmwood Avenue location was to announce the return of the Taste of Buffalo for the weekend of July 9. With Tops as an official partner of the Taste of Buffalo, the folks helping run this year's event will offer patrons the chance to support the 5/14 Survivors Fund as much as possible.
"With those QR codes, it gives everybody, when they come down to the event, the ability to just pull out their phone, scan [the QR code] and make that donation," said Taste of Buffalo Chair Luke Baecker. "I mean, most of us use our phones for everything. You can pay for everything, pay for gas, groceries, everything's on your phone these days. I don't even think people carry wallets anymore. So it just gives people that ability, gives them that [option], 'Hey, make that donation.' Really super simple, probably takes 30 seconds with the QR code to tap and pay with Google Pay Apple Pay, whatever you want to use. That's what we're really hoping people will do, to help everybody out. We're the 'City of Good Neighbors.' Hopefully we can continue that trend."
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