Workers Society yesterday closed down the Co-Op Supermarket after 17 years of operation at its Union Street location.

About 30 full and part-time staff will be laid off. A prepared statement by the co-operative executive stated that the 1,300 members are "actively working on a business plan in attempt to resolve the current financial problems''.

The members are working on a business plan that will "result in a new store and new beginning that will see the rebirth'' of the supermarket, the statement said.

According to a source, the reorganisation could take up to five weeks.

The co-operative's president Victor Fishington refused to make any further comment after the statement was read at the Bermuda Industrial Union's headquarters. Members will be meeting at 8 p.m. today for further information.

The supermarket has been on the brink of insolvency since 1995 when it racked up $600,000 in debts owed to 63 creditors. The supermarket's largest creditors -- wholesalers Winter Cookson Petty Ltd., Bermuda General Agency Ltd., and Butterfield & Vallis -- were owed half that amount.

In April last year the Co-Op appointed Harrison Isaac as general manager. He went on to develop a rescue plan for the supermarket and by June this year announced to a meeting of creditors that 32 creditors had been paid off.

Instalment plans had been worked out with the wholesalers and other creditors such as the Bermuda Electric Light Co. Ltd.

Mr. Isaac also announced the supermarket was taking in revenue of about $96,000 a week by June this year compared to about $52,000 a week a year earlier.

However in the midst of the supermarket's revival, Mr. Isaac suddenly left his job. Attempts to contact him were unsuccessful.

Keith Winter, president of Winter Cookson Petty, said yesterday the company was fully behind the attempt by the co-operative to reorganise its affairs.

"We have nothing to lose,'' he said. "It's pay as you go.'' Ward Young, president of Bermuda General Agency, said the wholesaler will continue to support efforts by the co-operative to restart the supermarket.

"We have always backed them,'' he said. "We have the utmost sympathy for the members. It's a sad day.'' He suggested that one way for the 1,300 members to revive the supermarket was to each pay an equal share of the outstanding debt.

The current supermarket grew out of the Island Co-Op Supermarket which was opened in Spanish Point in 1969. In 1980, the membership organisation closed the store after it accumulated debt of $204,000, according to a previous story in The Royal Gazette . The current store opened in October, 1980 with a bank loan of $240,000 at rented premises from the Bermuda Industrial Union.