By COLE REIF
Great Bend Post
LA CROSSE — The only grocery store in Rush County is now closed, but local officials
are doing everything possible to find new owners to reopen the store as soon as
possible.
The Rush County Grocery, in La Crosse, was forced to shut down Tuesday because
of back taxes. Owner Henry Montiel mentioned on the store’s social media
account that the State of Kansas forced the shutdown and seized all accounts for
failure to keep up with sales tax.
Rush County Economic Development Administrator Brad Penka said having the
grocery store closed for the foreseeable future is a huge blow to the
community.
"We're progressing, trying to help with the sale," said Penka. "This
kind of hit me out of the blue so we're not sure how this is going to
affect it. We want to get something open as soon as possible. It's a
very viable store. It's very important to the community. We have a lot
of older people in the community that can't go out of town."
Montiel, a 1994 graduate of La Crosse High School, moved back to his hometown
in 2018 to manage the grocery store. Montiel and his wife took over ownership of
the store in July 2021.
The Rush County Grocery has been up for sale the last
couple of months, looking for new owners.
"I already heard people say 'Why didn't someone do something to help?' "
said Penka. "The tax situation is a whole different thing. That's
outside of anything we can do. Our economic group helped with the store
when it was sold a few years ago. We helped find an owner and we're
hoping to do the same thing again."
On his social media post, Montiel apologized to patrons for the closure and thanked them for their support.
"Having
a small business and trying to keep everything running and all the
bills paid got the best of me..." Montiel stated in the post. "... That's
the reason I put the store up for sale was to let someone else with
better knowledge and better business sense to come in and take over."
Penka added there has been interest from a few potential owners to take over
the store on Main Street, and county officials are looking to reopen the store
as soon as possible.
If interested in owning the grocery store, residents can call Rush County
Economic Development at 785-222-2808.