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Community in Limbo

Community in Limbo - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 5:05PM EST

Reported by: Laurie Monteforte
Tuesday, May 6, 2008 @ 05:05pm EST
DELAWARE WATER GAP - A company that laid off hundreds of workers is now keeping an entire town in limbo. Laird Technologies told officials it would come up with a price to sell its Delaware Water Gap building by February.

Months later there's still no price and that means it's tough to find potential buyers.

You couldn't tell it was lunch time from the small crowd at the Delaware Water Gap Diner Tuesday.

"It's turning into a ghost town," said David Mumbauer.

He used to meet his friends at the diner for coffee every day. Now he drinks alone.

Most of his buddies worked at Laird Technologies, the electronics plant next door. Laird laid off most of its nearly 400 workers early this year.

Regas Ioannidis owns the diner. He said the layoffs took a big bite out of his business. "All day long people come, go, come, go, now dead," he said.

On top of that, Laird employees paid borough taxes. When they left everyone else's tax bills went up. Regas said he now pays about $1,000 more a year.

He said, "We do the best we can to survive, that's all."

The diner will have to wait at least a few months until it finds some relief. Laird has a skeleton crew working through August. That's when the company will shut its doors for good.

If things don't get better soon Regas said he might have to cut some of his employee's hours. "If I can't survive myself, I'll cut it down, I'll have no choice."

For now Regas will depend on weekend tourists customers while he waits for a new business to bring new regulars to his diner.

Delaware Water Gap's mayor tells us Laird's Realtor plans to figure out a price within the next few weeks. He estimates it will likely be about four and a half million dollars.
 


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