Coupon Holders Out Of Luck After Local Ace Hardware Closes

By John Voket

In the space of about 15 minutes Wednesday, five people walked up to the darkened doors of Ace Hardware on the corner of Church Hill Road and Queen Street. Four of those individuals were customers and one was a former employee who said the owner simply locked up the store Thursday, February 16, and never returned.

The former clerk, who asked to not be identified, said she along with several other store employees were left wondering if they would have a job under a new operator, or if the corporate office took over the store’s operations. She said it would be difficult to find another job in the current economy.

Another shopper, who declined to give his name, said he had just received a $5 coupon in the mail earlier this week as a reward for compiling points on an “Ace Rewards” program. But a company spokesperson at the Ace headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., said that the coupons should plainly state the redemption is only good at the store where the rewards program participant is registered.

In other words, anyone with coupons or other promotions tied to the Newtown store is temporarily out of luck, although the company did acknowledge that the store is out of business.

“We are aware of the closing of the Ace Hardware store in Newtown, Conn.,” said Kate Kirkpatrick, public relations manager for Ace Hardware Corporation. “As each Ace location is independently owned, the closure is the exclusive decision of the owner. With several other Ace stores in the area, we hope that Newtown residents will find another convenient Ace location to provide products and services to help them take care of their homes quickly and easily.”

Ms Kirkpatrick would not offer any further information as to the future of the local Ace enterprise, which opened to much fanfare in October 2009. At that time, owner Ed Pitochelli said he had spent more than a quarter century working at United Technology where he most recently had been designing hydrogen fuel cells.

At the time, he said locating the store in Newtown was a decision several years in the making, but when he and his wife Dorothy were driving through the community one day, “we immediately fell in love with it. We thought it would be a perfect fit, and all the research pointed to Newtown being a great place for our store.”

Since opening, Mr Pitochelli had provided donations to numerous local charities and community projects, hosted food drives and Salvation Army bell ringers, as well as supported activities from the Labor Day Parade to the Relay For Life.

Last year, Newtown Chamber of Commerce President Ann Marie Deweese wrote to The Bee to publicly thank Mr Pitochelli for coming to her home to help with a roof-related emergency she was having.

“He got on my roof and tied a tarp over the opening,” she wrote. “It took about ten minutes, but that’s not the point. The point is that this local business owner went above and beyond to help one of his customers.”

As recently as last week, Ace was in the news again because of a leak in a propane tank the store uses to fill containers for gas grills and other outdoor appliances.