Fabian continues to claim victims with businessman Richard Powell blaming the hurricane for his decision to close his community grocery store in Ord Road, Warwick.

Mr. Powell has run Lines Food and Liquor Mart for ten years, but he said Fabian has wiped out his profits.

Now he plans to convert part of the building to apartments while continuing to run his wholesale business ARA Imports from a section of the store.

Mr. Powell said many staff at the Fairmont Southampton, Sonesta Beach and Cafe Lido would use the store after work but he lost the business when the properties closed after the hurricane.

And he said the hurricane had wiped out local banana sales. He previously sold 300 lbs of Bermuda bananas a week, but now he put out 80 lbs of local bananas but had to throw out 20 lbs.

He also said he was fed up not getting proper support from some of the big wholesalers, and complained he could not get Dunkley?s Dairy to deliver milk to him on a Saturday even though the company would drop off supplies to neighbouring businesses.

?It?s a business decision. I am not happy about it, but I have to be realistic and say it makes no sense to stay in business losing money,? said Mr. Powell yesterday.

?I can?t continue to support the grocery store through the wholesale business.

?From September to Christmas we held our own as we have a booming business in Christmas tree sales. But since then we have lost money every week and it has got progressively worse.

?When we looked at the March figures, I figured that?s the end of it.?

Bermudian families would drop in to buy his local bananas and individually packaged codfish for traditional codfish breakfasts.

?(Former local MP) Reginald Burrows would come in every Saturday to buy my local bananas because he knew I had them. He may pick up a loaf of broad and some other things and with that it turned into a $10 to $15 sale.

?When families would get together for a codfish breakfast they come in for our own packaged codfish. By the time they buy potatoes, bananas, onions and tomatoes and other stuff it can be a $30 or $40 or $50 sale.

?That?s 60 of these customers a week that have disappeared. Work it out: 60 customers a week at $30 is $1,800 in lost sales. Some wholesalers would stick with us and support us like they did with other small stores. But others treated us like a stepchild or worse.?

He said he found it too difficult to compete with bigger stores because the majority of wholesalers treated them differently. His staff would have to collect their orders, while for bigger stores, salesmen would organise a delivery and give advertising support.

?With this, you wonder why we can?t compete with the bigger stores? ? he said.