Clarence business helps community by selling rock salt amid ongoing shortage

CLARENCE, N.Y. (WIVB) — As winter continues across Western New York, local municipalities and their residents are continuing to face an ongoing rock salt shortage. One business in Clarence is helping hundreds of people get through the icy conditions.

The rock salt shortage has been affecting several counties across Western New York since mid-January. Not only is it impacting crews from clearing the roads, but residents are unable to even find salt to purchase for their own driveways and sidewalks.

“It’s an issue because we’ve had customers, probably about four people who have come this morning that spent the night in the hospital with their wives, their husbands, grandmothers, you name it,” said Nick Bretherton, who operates N.E. Bretherton Soil and Stone. “They have broken bones, stitches from slipping.”

Bretherton is one of the lucky people who has access to rock salt — and quite a lot of it.

“We use a lot of trucking companies in the summertime to bring back bulk material,” said Bretherton. “We sell a lot of mulch, soil, and stone and we were able to kind of leverage that to get trucking companies to run around and find it from wherever and bring it to us.”

Bretherton has been receiving 80 tons of rock salt every night from locations such as Pennsylvania and Ohio. Bretherton and his wife, Heather, have started selling buckets to nearby residents and beyond.

“As he’s loading trucks, I’m loading buckets,” Heather Bretherton said. “It’s been crazy — the lines, everything.”

With many retail stores out of rock salt, Bretherton has had to up the prices he would normally be charging, asking $10 dollars for a five-gallon bucket.

“We’re paying an outrageous amount ourselves and we unfortunately have to raise the prices,” Bretherton said. “We’re trying to keep the buckets as low as we can for the residential, but we can only do so much.”

Nick and Heather said while it has been quite the hassle to keep up with the hundreds of phone calls, texts and emails they’ve received, they’re enjoying every minute of it and are using this experience as a fun way to connect with the community.

“It’s crazy, but it’s been actually really nice,” said Heather Bretherton. “Everyone’s been kind of laughing and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve got salt!’ “

If you’re in need of salt, Nick and Heather are offering pickups or deliveries. You can contact them at 716-262-5495 to coordinate or visit their Facebook page.

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Trina Catterson joined the News 4 team in 2024. She previously worked at WETM-TV in Elmira, a sister station of WIVB. See more of her work here.

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