The Ohio bridal shop that Texas nurse Amber Vinson visited in October days before she was diagnosed with Ebola is going out of business, People magazine has learned.
"It's not what we planned for or expected to happen," Kala Litz, manager of Coming Attractions Bridal & Formal, told the magazine. "The stigma never really went away. We became the Ebola store."
Amber Vinson's October weekend visit to the Akron, Ohio, based shop caused a national uproar after she flew back to Dallas on Monday and was diagnosed with the Ebola virus the next day.
When the store learned of Vinson's diagnosis, shop owner Anna Younker closed the business down as a precaution, called in a cleaning crew and kept it closed for the maximum 21-day incubation period health officials say Ebola symptoms can occur.
Vinson, who was cured of the virus, did not exhibit symptoms when she visited the shop in search of bridesmaids dresses for her upcoming wedding. Health officials also say a person is only contagious when they are showing symptoms, including vomiting and high fever, so there was no immediate concern the nurse infected others at the shop.
But all of Younker's cleaning and preparing did not work because when the store reopened, no one wanted to go inside, People reported.
"People would call and ask, 'Is it okay to come in the store?' " Litz said. "They would just want to stand in the doorway when they needed to pick something up."
The store held a massive reopening sale that drew in shoppers, but it was not enough to help keep the store in business. Other customers began asking for their money back.
Litz said they were hoping the shop's insurance would cover the losses after the Ebola scare, but "the insurance company had a bacterial/viral clause that said they do not cover that sort of thing," the manager told People. "We thought they would help us. And then that completely fell through."
To top it off, after Vinson recovered, the shop received a letter from her lawyer asking for her money back for the bridesmaids dresses. Litz said Vinson requested the refund "to avoid any further stigma."
The nurse could not be reached for comment, People reported.
"We've never done anything to make [Vinson] feel we didn't want her here. We never blamed her," Litz said. "And then the letter came and it was just like, wow."
The bridal shop, in business for 30 years, was looking into tuxedo rentals and making plans to expand before Vinson walked in that Saturday in October. The store will close for good in May.
"This was not the plan," the manager said. "Closing the store was not the plan."