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FORTY FORT &mdash; Before the coronavirus outbreak hit, Eric Kuhn truly was living his American dream.
				He had turned his lifelong love of fine clothes into an occupation, as co-owner and founder of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/TheHab900/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Haberdashery</a>, and sole owner of <a href="http://www.900luxe.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Luxe </a><a href="http://www.900luxe.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">900</a>, men&rsquo;s and women&rsquo;s apparel stores, respectively, in the 900 Rutter complex.
				But with Gov. Tom Wolf&rsquo;s order closing non-life-sustaining businesses to stop the virus&rsquo; spread, Kuhn&rsquo;s operations have all but ground to a halt.
				&ldquo;It&rsquo;s crushing business. It&rsquo;s absolutely crushing it,&rdquo; Kuhn said last week during an interview at Luxe. &ldquo;I can be here, I can be in the store but I can&rsquo;t allow customers in.&rdquo;
				Every few days Kuhn makes the drive down from his home in Dickson City anyway.
				&ldquo;I like to be here. I clean, I dust. I water the plants. Sometimes I&rsquo;m still getting packages,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I like being here. It&rsquo;s my store.&rdquo;
				&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve moved these racks three times since the closure, just to change the look of the store,&rdquo; Kuhn added.
				For Kuhn, who has no employees at Luxe, there is another reason to go in: He offers online ordering through several platforms &mdash; 900luxe.com. Instagram, Facebook, Shopify &mdash; and even phone orders, and is eager to do whatever he must to make the process easy for customers.
				&ldquo;I can do curbside pickup, or I can hand-deliver it or mail it,&rdquo; Kuhn said.
				So far, though, Kuhn admits such orders have been few.
				&ldquo;I sell clothing. People want to touch it, they want to see it, they want to try it on,&rdquo; he said.
				A dream come true
				Kuhn, 34, has always had a taste for fashionable attire.
				&ldquo;My first magazine was GQ. That was in the fifth grade,&rdquo; he said with a chuckle.
				Several years ago, Kuhn visited the former Friedman&rsquo;s Clothiers in Dunmore to buy his grandfather a sportcoat.
				His conversation with owner Phillp Friedman would lead to a job &mdash; and a friendship.
				&ldquo;I started talking to him, and he said I should be in this business because of how much I knew. I never sold clothes, I just loved them,&rdquo; Kuhn said. &ldquo;So I went to work with him and he taught me everything.&rdquo;
				Kuhn eventually looked to branch out on his own.
				&ldquo;My family said if you&rsquo;re going to start your own business, get a master&rsquo;s degree just in case,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So I went to Marywood and got a masters, while I put in the work opening my first store.&rdquo;
				Kuhn completed his degree in business communications in 2017, the same year The Haberdashery opened. He opened Luxe in October 2018.
				&lsquo;An amazing place&rsquo;
				Advice from his mentor had steered Kuhn toward Luzerne County, and 900 Rutter specifically.
				&ldquo;Phillip Friedman told me about this building, and a lot of our customers up there came from this area, so I knew there was interest,&rdquo; he said.
				&ldquo;I came to this building and met the landlord, David Koral. He&rsquo;s just an amazing guy and this building is an amazing place. This just felt like where I should be,&rdquo; Kuhn added.
				<a href="https://900rutter.com/#about" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The 138,000-square-foot former industrial complex</a> is home to a a mix of small businesses, ranging from boutique operations like Kuhn&rsquo;s to Commonwealth Home Health of Wilkes-Barre and The Room at 900 events venue.
				Kuhn sees some of the other tenants coming in to work as he does, mostly to clean and accept shipments.
				What to do?
				&ldquo;They&rsquo;re all hurting,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;A lot of them do have employees and they&rsquo;re trying to figure out what to do.&rdquo;
				Luxe is an LLC, or limited liability company, and has no employees. But from what Kuhn can tell, he understands that means he would not be able to apply for unemployment &mdash; though he admits he also wouldn&rsquo;t think it right to do so.
				&ldquo;Yes, I&rsquo;m hurting, but to be fair &mdash; I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion &mdash; if I don&rsquo;t have employees and am not paying unemployment taxes, why should I get it?&rdquo;
				Like his neighbors, though, Kuhn has applied for government grants and is waiting on them to be processed.
				The wait is painful, but again, he knows those businesses with workers to support are feeling even greater pain.
				&ldquo;The grants &mdash; the payroll protection &mdash; will they be able to pay the employees what they normally pay them or is it better for the employees to get unemployment? Fire them and rehire them? That&rsquo;s a big question. And the system is so backlogged.&rdquo; he said.
				For now, Kuhn can only wait and remain hopeful, noting that he does have some reserves.
				And how long can he hold out?
				&ldquo;A matter of months? Maybe,&rdquo; he said with a quiet shrug of his shoulders.

Clothing store owner talks about pandemic’s challenges for small businesses