Covington location of tween brand Justice closes
On Aug. 12 , Justice team members in Covington worked their last days on the job after the company filed for bankruptcy two weeks beforehand.
Similar to many other establishments, Justice is one of many that had to close down due to loss of money from the pandemic. They filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed around 90 percent of their stores.
Thirteen out of the 16 closed in the district.
According to Trudy Jenkins, the manager at the Covington location, the store closure affected her team, herself, and 12 other girls that she knew. Due to the two weeks notice before the closure, the team was left with a lot to deal with in a short amount of time.
“We have all had to get new jobs, but I have yet to find another one,” Jenkins said.
All of the team members were saddened upon hearing about the closure, not only because they would be losing their jobs, but also their friends. Jenkins recalls bursting into tears upon hearing the news on the realization that she would miss all of her girls and her work.
On top of that, the staff also had to sell all of the store’s products and items within the store by Aug. 12. Coworkers banded together in the last two weeks as they prepared the store for a closing sale by putting up new deal signs and marketing.
Within the store, items that could be sold included the clothing, jewelry, dressing room mirrors, racks and tables.
Customers still came in to shop and the Justice was busy as usual, even though this was not the typical sale. There was definitely a flow of loyal and happy customers that were ready to see what they could get in the Justice’s final two weeks.
“We still wanted to service the customers and continued to think of them first,” stated Yvette Williams, one of the team members at the Covington location.
The staff did the best they could to treat every work day as if it were normal and were even able to sell out the entire store by the time the closing date came around.
The team members from the Covington Justice still try to remain in contact even after the closure of their beloved store. Many coworkers still have each other’s contact information and continually try to be updated on each other.
The team members even got together for dinner shortly after the closure of their store, as a last goodbye of sorts and to talk about all of their good memories from their time at Justice.
According to Jenkins there are still two locations of the tween brand within Louisiana that are operating in Lakeside Mall and Acadiana if anyone still wants to shop at Justice soon.
