Circuit City has just released a press release to announce their plans to liquidate and close 155 stores nationwide and exit 12 US media markets, including Atlanta. Circuit City also plans to reduce new store openings and renegotiate leases on existing storefronts. Which comes as no surprise to me, as anytime I’ve been to a Circuit City recently, the place has been a ghost town.

The reasons listed for this action include a weakened economy with less consumer spending, little to no purchasing credit from their vendors, the inability to collect an $80 million tax refund that they feel they are owed by the government and so forth. According to James A. Marcum, vice chairman and acting president and chief executive officer of Circuit City Stores, Inc. who said in the press release, “Since late September, unprecedented events have occurred in the financial and consumer markets causing macroeconomic trends to worsen sharply. The weakened environment has resulted in a slowdown of consumer spending, further impacting our business as well as the business of our vendors. The combination of these trends has strained severely our working capital and liquidity, and so we are making a number of difficult, but necessary, decisions to address the company’s financial situation as quickly as possible.”

As such, Circuit City will close 155 underperforming stores or stores in markets that are no longer a strategic fit, which includes ALL the Atlanta area stores. The impacted stores will not open on Tuesday, November 4th and the closing liquidation sales will begin on Wednesday, November 5th, with the expectation that the sales and closures will be completed by the end of the year. The list of all affected stores can be found at the company’s investor home page. Circuit City still plans to keep open the Rome and Columbus stores for now, along with 564 other stores throughout the country. Their website and phone order operations will not be affected by this recent announcement.

Sad news if you know anyone working for Circuit City. But on the plus side, there’s a good chance you might find a good deal on your Holiday gift shopping. So it all boils down to this, if you happen to have a Circuit City gift card, you better start spending it now.