IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Vestis Retail Group LLC, the parent company of Sport Chalet, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, two days after the company announced it plans to close the entire sporting goods store chain.
Store closings, including the multiple Sports Chalet stores in the Inland Empire, are expected to be completed by the end of this month, according to company statement.
All Sports Chalet stores will hold going-out-of-business sales during the next two weeks. Sports Chalet, which has been in business since the late 1950s, also announced that it’s discontinuing its online sales, effective immediately.
Ironically, the chain might have fallen victim to the Internet, one local economist said.
“Certain kinds of retail are facing tremendous competition from the Internet, and some of them are being put out of business,” said Chris Thornberg, director of the UC Riverside Center for Economic Forecasting at the School of Business Administration and an adjunct professor there. “Books, music and sporting goods can all be bought very easily online, which is why the [brick-and-mortar] stores in those sectors are getting clobbered.”
Vestis Retail’s bankruptcy process is expected to last about two months.
