The June 11th fire at Notions Marketing’s warehouse on Crofton Street SE in Grand Rapids shut down the wholesale craft supply distributor’s main building, affecting shipping operations after smoke contaminated the facility and a substantial amount of inventory.
In an online letter, company president Anthony Piperno wrote: “Due to the indefinite timeline for recovery, we made the very difficult decision last week to cancel all customer and vendor orders and to lay off a major portion of our workforce.”
Company leaders are notifying state officials in Michigan and Minnesota of the permanent layoff of approximately 200 employees as a result.
181 of those are in Michigan.
Piperno noted that the company hired experts to work through insurance and recovery issues and intends to return to operations as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, a team is being assembled to help laid-off workers find new jobs.
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