White & Sons closed last night after 88 years in business, while sister stores Hayward’s and Whites Southside have shut their doors following a court order.Staff from liquidator KPMG closed down both Hayward’s and Whites Southside on Wednesday evening following a day of drastic sales at both businesses.Efforts to contact the stores owners for comment have been unsuccessful as of press time. Representatives for KPMG meanwhile did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.Petitions to wind up both the stores were submitted last week by Butterfield and Vallis. The matter was scheduled to be heard in the Supreme Court on August 31.A staff member at Whites Southside, speaking under the condition of anonymity, said that representatives for the liquidator, KPMG, came into the store with a court order to stop business.At the time, the store was crowded with people with people taking advantage of a 40 percent off sale.“They did it to Southside and Haywards because of the sale and what was going on,” the worker said. “I told the liquidators there was supposed to be a 50 percent off sale [on Thursday].“It was around 7pm when we were finally able to get all the customers out of the store and ring off the registers. After that, we had a big meeting with the liquidators.“We have not been made redundant yet. They are just coming up with some ideas about how to handle it.”He alleged that the more than 20 staff at the store have been working without health insurance for months.When told about the 40 percent off sale, he said the staff saw the move as a cash grab at the expense of the staff and the store’s various creditors.As a result, the employees contacted both the liquidators and several of the stores creditors about the sale.“The staff are all pretty happy because the liquidators came in when they did and took the receipts for the day,” he said. “Now, it’s not going to the owners.”While he said the staff felt they made the right move by contacting the liquidators, he noted that the effect of the decision on the staff could be significant.Not only will the staff potentially lose out on the pay they might have earned by working until the store was wound up, he said they have not been paid yet for their most recent week’s work.“There’s no payroll now,” he said. “Nobody is getting paid for last week, nobody is going to be paid this week, and nobody is going to be paid for the two weeks that the store would have been open.“Most of the staff here are living pay check to pay check and I know one worker who will probably be evicted. Everyone has basically lost four weeks pay. The staff were depressed by that.”Despite the financial impact on the staff, he said: “I still think we did the right thing. The staff were talking about it and everybody agrees we did the right thing. We knew where the money was going.“We are pretty upset about the pay, but at the end of the day we might actually get our money sooner.“That money that’s owed to us for last week and this week will likely get added to our redundancy pay.”White & Sons original location in Warwick meanwhile closed its doors last night with KPMG offering a 50 percent liquidation sale on all stock, including household, health and beauty items.The Supreme Court had approved a petition to wind up the store last Friday after hearing a petition by International Bonded Couriers of Bermuda, signed by 27 other creditors.The majority of the store’s staff were laid off on Tuesday after KPMG were unable to find a buyer for the store, but a handful were kept on to help with the winding up process.