The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odor which doth in it live.
— William Shakespeare, Sonnet 56
Jarita’s, Woodstock’s only florist, lasted 47 years. It opened its doors July 7, 1977. Its last day of business will be December 31, 2024.
The business name comes from a mashup of the married owners’ names, Jay Sadowitz and Rita Sands.
“Calling it quits is a really harsh way of putting it. We’re transitioning,” Sadowitz said. “Circumstances came around. An opportunity came up. We’re both not young. We’ve been doing this a long time. Forty-seven years.”
He said the outpouring of community support had been “absolutely overwhelming.” Customers have been stopping by or calling to extend their best wishes.
Melissa Gibson, owner of Hemp & Humanity, will be taking over the space with her partner, Courtney Beaupre of Honey’s Cannabis. They expect to open a dispensary called HERbal Woodstock in February.
Sadowitz wanted to make it clear they were not being pushed out by the new business. “We were not forced to do anything. It was our decision to say yes or no. We could continue to go along, but circumstances came up and we said, okay, let’s do it,” he said. “Making it to 50 would be difficult. It would have been three more years. I’m 81 years old, so I would have been 84.”
Ulster county comptroller March Gallagher, their daughter, had to quash the rumor it was she who was retiring. “It’s indicative of how rumors get going. It’s like the game of telephone,” Sadowitz said.
The work is physically demanding. It involves more than wrapping flowers. There’s a lot of heavy lifting of large shipments.
“Running upstairs,” Sands said. Their production room where they make the floral arrangements is upstairs from the store.
“People see flowers as very light and delicate. It’s heavy [business]. Boxes come in with loads of flowers,” Sadowitz said. “Boxes come in with vases that are heavy. There’s a physical component to it that became harder.”
In many ways, the timing of the closing was right. “Our team is really great, but they’re also kind of in a place, all of them, to be ready to leave,” Sands said. Their longest-serving employee, Sarah Wenderoth, has been with them for 27 years. “She’s almost like a third partner because she knows everything. She kind of grew up here.”
Sands called the store the perfect spot across from the village green for Santa’s arrival on Christmas Eve. One year’s notable arrival, Sadowitz reminded, was Santa on an elephant.
They did the floral arrangements for the Dalai Lama’s visit to Woodstock in 2006.
They decorated the pavilion at Andy Lee Field.
Their customers have ranged from Rocky Rosario to Barack Obama. Rocky, a Woodstock character who passed away a decade ago, used to come in and buy flowers from the bargain bucket and give them away to people on the street.
Sadowitz recalled filling an order from George H.W. Bush’s secretary of state James Baker when a civilian employee from Woodstock was the first American to die in Iraq.
Sadowitz and Sands protect the privacy of the long list of famous and semi-famous people who have come own the store or ordered over the years. “People say you could write a book, but we won’t do that,” he said. “We protect florist confidentiality.”
“One of the things that I’ve enjoyed the most is the connection we’ve made to the community at every segment, every level,” Sands said. “It’s for us that kind of experience of just the universality of people. We’d have rich people, we’d have poor people, we’d have in-between people from a lot of different countries, and that’s just been very enriching to me, and also eye-opening. Flowers are a universal language the way music is and art are,” Sands said.
“We do art,” Sadowitz said.
Art crosses political and cultural boundaries.
“I sort of came from a lefty, liberal political background,” Sands said, “and we’ve always been so political, but being here when we first started, it was like, oh, these Republicans are coming in. I’m glad that I’ve gotten the awareness that we’re all just people. It’s immaterial material, having a political discussion with anybody that looks in here for that for good reason.”
Flowers bring out unexpected characteristics in people.
“I’ve had biker guys, scary-looking biker guys,” Sands said. “One guy came in and he had these wonderful flower tattoos, and he was buying a flower, and I said something to him like oh, that’s really great. And he got really proud. We had this whole nice conversation about his tattoos. So for me that’s a large part of what this is.”
Sadowitz answered the phone in between conversation. Sands mentioned that she had to go upstairs and get to work.
“We got way too many orders for today, because one of my people are out sick, so I’m shorthanded, and, it’s going to snow. So these are all things that we have to deal with,” Sands said.
All businesses have their anxious times.
“Here’s something we will not miss,” Sadowitz said. “The anxiety of snow on Valentine’s Day. You know, Valentine’s Day is a critical holiday for the floral business, because it’s in the slow part of the year, and it’s huge. But if it snows and you’re in a rural area like us …”
“… You’re screwed,” Sands said, finishing Sadowitz’s thought.
“It’s a real problem, and it’s happened,” Sadowitz explained. “We have to book a month in advance of flowers. So we spend half of January and half of February worrying, anxious about the weather, looking, and that will be a great relief this year.”
Sands said she’d seen a lot of change over the years, some good and some bad. Change is inevitable.
“There’s some new energy. I mean, do I love everybody? No. But it doesn’t matter. If you want business to thrive in town, you want people with money,” she said. “And obviously, hopefully, if the people move here they’ll contribute to the community and be part of it the way everybody else has.”
Sands would have preferred to have the location sold as a flower shop, but a different opportunity arose.
“I’m looking forward to waking up on January 2 without having to order flowers,” Sands said. “It’s gonna be a big change for us. I’ve worked my whole life. We both like structure, but it just became too much structure. And we have 20 orders to get out and it’s going to snow.”
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