Savers Thrift on University Avenue held its grand opening ceremony on Thursday. Cutting the ribbon were store manager Craig Gains with Katherine Keeney of the Epilepsy Foundation, an unidentified man, and and Savers president and CEO Ken Alterman. Photo: Natalie Orenstein
A new for-profit thrift store opened its doors on University Avenue on Thursday in a ceremony filled with balloons and music – but already burdened with the job of doing damage control with its neighbors.
Savers Thrift Store opened at 1414 University Ave., the former site of Andronico’s, on the heels of a lawsuit that gave the building’s owners exclusive rights to the adjacent parking lot, which had once been shared by neighboring businesses. The decision to only allow Savers customers to use the lot prompted nearby residents to threaten to boycott Savers.
“We’ve always wanted a store in Berkeley because our stores do best with a very broad demographic,” Savers president and CEO Ken Alterman said at the ribbon-cutting.(...)
Read the rest of Excitement and concern mark opening of Savers Thrift (1,096 words)
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Post tags: Berkeley Bazaar Partnerships, Epilepsy Foundation, Joyce Yamagiwa, Katherine Keeney, Ken Alterman, Nicola Bourne, Savers Thrift