from the San Francisco Chronicle
After 30 years, Smith & Hawken to close
Alejandro Martínez-Cabrera, Chronicle Staff Writer
(07-09) 15:18 PDT NOVATO — Nearly 30 years after the first Smith & Hawken store opened in Mill Valley, the gardening retail chain is being closed by parent company Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., which said it will drop the brand by the end of this year.
Smith & Hawken, founded by Dave Smith and Paul Hawken in 1979, began its final sale Thursday by slashing prices by 20 to 30 percent. Its Web site already has stopped accepting orders, hanging out a virtual chalkboard sign reading, “Thank you for 30 wonderful years in the garden.”
The move will leave 700 employees nationwide, including those at its Novato headquarters, without a job. Scotts Miracle-Gro said in a statement that it will pay about $25 million in lease terminations and severance payments.
Scotts Miracle-Gro, in Marysville, Ohio, had been losing money on Smith & Hawken since it bought the company in 2004. Its initial plan was to turn the brand into an outdoor living and gardening product line it could move through wholesale distribution channels like Home Depot and Lowe’s, said company spokesman Jim King.
“That proved to be a strategy we could not execute. It left us with a specialty retailer and that’s not who we are. We never meant to keep it as a stand-alone retail operation,” he said.