Going cash only in Buffalo

It does make it more difficult for the state Department of Taxation and Finance to verify a business has recorded all of its cash sales because there's no data from banks or credit-card companies, spokeswoman Susan Burns said. However, the department's auditors have extensive experience in auditing cash-only businesses and recently received additional training, Burns said. When a customer uses a credit or debit card, the business must pay a merchant discount fee based on the transaction size. This fee averages about 2 percent for a credit card and 1 percent or less on a debit card, according to Peter Garuccio, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association.

"This community needed a store, but not a 70,000-square-foot store," [Tops president Frank] Curci said of the $3 million renovation project. "As a smaller-format Tops store, this location fits perfectly." Tops opened its first smaller store this summer, a nearly 40,000-square-foot supermarket in a former IGA store in the Rochester suburb of Spencerport. "We've learned a heck of a lot," Curci said. "We learned: Don't treat it differently." Tops executives learned, for instance, that shoppers expected the smaller store to have the same variety of products and specialized departments, from a full-service deli and bakery to a Butcher's Block meat counter, that the bigger stores have. The challenge, Curci said, is to pack all of that into a store that's half the size. "We have some of everything you'll find in a big store. The trick is how do you fit it all in," he said. "We didn't build this to be a convenience store."