Merchants Hope for a Turnaround on Butler's Main St.

Current economic conditions have not been kind to Butler’s Main Street shops, many of which have struggled enough to the point of closing their doors for good in recent months.

Much of the struggle for business owners to successfully maintain their businesses comes from the fact that, in harsh economic times, it is hard to attract new small businesses to an area where others have not been successful.

Mayor Bob Alviene said the borough is trying different initiatives, including outreach to Main Street property owners and prospective business owners, in order to bring small business roaring back in

“We do have some good things going on, but in these economic times, it’s not easy to attract new businesses,” Alviene said. “What we’re trying to do there is entice more businesses. The landlords own these buildings, so hopefully, they’ll make the rent affordable. That’s what we’d like to do.”

“We do have some very successful businesses in our town,” Alviene said. “If we can show that to people, maybe we can attract them to come.”

This is no easy task, especially considering that the economy has taken its toll on the average consumer as well. According to Fred Shafer, owner of health food store on Main Street, not as many people have been shopping downtown as in the past.

“The town certainly needs some work. I’ve seen the traffic flow diminish a lot, I would say, over the past few years,” Shafer said. “I don’t know what the magic bullet is to bring it back, but we’re a specialty store and we cater to our customers and do our best to try to have what they want. It brings them back, but there’s a lot of competition in the area for us, specifically, so it’s been a rough go with the economy as it is.”

One Main Street business owner said any disposable income consumers do have these days tends to go to “superstores” and nationally-recognized chain stores, which makes having a typical “Main Street” business even more difficult.

 “A lot of people don’t support their towns,” said David Leslie, the owner of . “They go to the mall and the bigger places to get bigger discounts. They don’t really care about the small businesses in town, and that should really change.”

Small business owners like Leslie are committed to making that change occur.

“I’d like to see it doing a lot better and that’s why I came here,” Leslie said. “Butler needs a little boost, a lot of things are going away. We need nicer places like mine around here. When I first opened, people were coming in and saying, ‘I’m so glad that you’re here. You dressed it up a little bit.’”

Shafer, a member of the borough’s Main Street Association, also has tried to increase awareness of his and other small businesses in town by reaching out to the community. Shafer has done this by way of general advertising, public lectures and even the use of social media.

“We have a website, we have a Facebook page and that’s the best we can do right now, other than going door-to-door and talking to people one-on-one,” Shafer said. “That’s really old school and it may come to that at some point.”

Tri-Boro Patch reached out to other Main Street businesses, including , , and , but owners declined to comment.

Despite the current state of the borough’s small shops, both Shafer and Leslie are approaching 2012 with a sense of guarded optimism.

“I don’t know what the outlook is for 2012,” Shafer said. “I’m optimistic about 2012 versus 2011.”

“I have no idea what the future’s going to bring," Leslie said. "It all depends on the economy, for one, and the people.”