Did you even know there was a helium shortage? Party City does, and it's really hurt their business.

Party City, which has locations in New Hartford and Syracuse, says they plan to close 45 locations in 2019 in an effort to "optimize market level performance" and focus on their most profitable locations.

One of the reasons the company describes as impacting their business is a helium shortage. Who knew? But, if your business is made up of - in large part - balloons, not being able to blow those babies up is going to negatively affect your business. James M. Harrison, Chief Executive Officer, stated, “Overall, our first quarter results were largely in line with our expectations on the top and bottom lines, inclusive of the helium shortage, which negatively impacted our latex and metallic balloon categories."

The company plans to close the stores over the remainder of the year - but the list of stores affected has not yet been released.

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