Ernst Home Centers has closed its stores in Layton and Sandy.
Officials of the Seattle-based company said the stores are among 25 closed as a result of last Friday's decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.Ernst still will have nine stores in Utah and 61 overall.
The Layton store was closed Saturday morning, without warning to its approximately 35 full- and part-time employees.
The store's manager wasn't sure how many workers would receive other jobs.
"If they want to move to another store, some of them can (get jobs)," Lema Doyle said Monday.
Ernst Vice President Jim Fox said the store's inventory would be transferred to other stores. The nearest is now in Bountiful; the others are in Orem, Spanish Fork, Midvale, Logan and three in Salt Lake City.
"With the state of the company and with the operating losses, we needed to re-channel our efforts to our 61 historically most profitable stores," Fox said. "It (the Layton store) was viable, but we didn't have the resources to allow stores like that to mature."
The Layton store also suffered from a relatively new competitor, Eagle Hardware & Garden, which opened its store north of Layton Hills Mall in January 1995.
Earlier this year Ernst closed its store on Riverdale Road, which had seen sales drop since The Home Depot built a store across the street.
Ernst had two stores in Ogden, one to the west of the Ogden City Mall and the other on Harrison Boulevard near the Dee Events Center. Those two stores were consolidated into the Riverdale site in 1992.
At least 11 of the 25 Ernst Home Center stores being closed are in Washington state.
Before Friday, the company operated 86 stores in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming.