Business & Tech
Play It Again Sports to Close
Store owner John Carroll says that nearby vacancies, poor seasonal sales and a village ordinance for resale stores passed in recent years are all factors that have reduced business.
Play It Again Sports of Frankfort will close its doors in approximately six weeks.
“Business has just been poor,” said John Carroll, the store’s owner.
Play it Again is located in Hickory Creek Marketplace on La Grange Road. Carroll said that the many vacancies at Hickory Creek have been bad for business.
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Both storefronts north of Play It Again are vacant. Neighboring restaurant Chicago Blu closed a few months ago. Raymond Levine, another occupant of Hickory Creek, closed two years ago and the retail space has remained empty ever since.
Carroll also said that warm weather in recent years has led to a decrease in the sale of winter sporting goods, such as ice skates, hockey equipment and snow boards.
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“It’s been really tough to sell seasonal products,” he said.
Carroll has owned the Frankfort store for five years. Before that he operated the Play It Again location in Hodgkins. He says that the used products are selling relatively well, but that the new products are harder to move.
One challenge Carroll says he has faced as a business owner involves operating under a village ordinance passed two years ago concerning second hand retail shops and pawnshops in the village.
The ordinance requires businesses such as Play It Again to hold products for five days before placing them on the floor. Businesses are also required to check sellers’ photo IDs, photo document products and file police reports about products, according to Carroll. The goal of the ordinance is to prevent the sale of stolen goods to resale stores.
Carroll wrote a letter opposing the original ordinance after it was passed by the village in February 2011. That ordinance was later redrafted, with input from Carroll, and passed under its current conditions in April of the same year.
"We want business in Frankfort, and we want your business in Frankfort,” Mayor Jim Holland told Carroll at the time that the second draft of the ordinance was passed. “But we need to protect our citizens from people who would want to do them harm, to protect them from these types of theives.”
Carroll said the ordinance affected Play It Again’s success in Frankfort.
“It did impact the business,” he said.
In the coming weeks, Play It Again will offer storewide sales, with all products marked down 10-40 percent. The store will offer greater discounts as Play It Again’s closing date approaches.
This article includes reporting by Patch Editor Joe Vince.
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