Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Lawrence Petron – WR Hambrick
Lawrence Petron – WR Hambrick
Just to be clear, at this point for 2008 you’re looking at adding one new store as you mentioned the Rhode Island store is tabbed for 2009, do I have that correct?
Stephen Day
Yes the Rhode Island store has flipped from what we thought was going to be a mid-November opening over into next year because of the lease negotiations sort at the last minute on the lease the landlord inserted a provision where Dover Saddlery would be responsible for the structural elements of the building including the roof, which is an abnormal clause, particularly in a tough time.
So we had to go through a round where we actually said we’re done, we’re walking away from this lease unless you eliminate this clause so its delayed it by about 60 days to get that all cleared up.
Lawrence Petron – WR Hambrick
Just approximately, do you expect it to be towards your largest sized stores, do you think it’ll be in the middle of the range? What’s your expectations for that store?
Stephen Day
Middle of the range, it’s a B store.
Lawrence Petron – WR Hambrick
Just looking at what you’ve seen in the third quarter, I was curious on the retail channel again, did you see any geographical differences in terms of store performance, or was it pretty negative across the board in terms of same store sales?
Stephen Day
Yes, we saw a little bit of a difference in the northeast market not only in our stores, but as reported by our vendors was a soft market, probably one of the softest markets in the country. Whereas the mid Atlantic market, particularly the areas around Washington, DC, as you might expect, have stood up quite well.
Lawrence Petron – WR Hambrick
Still negative in the same store sales numbers or slightly negative or did you see actually some stores with positive comps?
Lawrence Petron – WR Hambrick
We had some stores with positive comps and year-to-date we’re at minus 1.5% so we’re essentially even year-to-date. October was a bad month though just as you know from all the reports in The Wall Street Journal. It was a tough month in retailing and probably, there were a couple of weeks in there where things were down by 10%, 15% but they seemed to have bounced back from now and of course that was much worse then we were seeing in the earlier part of the year.
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