I think it is just specific to that particular store I looked online at both the Bernina site in the US and the Canadian one as well there is nothing on there about closing down stores. I agree with Tartan when I was looking at the Bernina's in our LQS the woman that sells the machines mentioned how she had just come back from a training weekend from Toronto. She said that all Bernina reps must keep up to date on changes or they'd lose their contract with Bernina as a authorized store. I know she has a person that does all of the repairs on the machines.