Laurie Hernandez stood at the cash register with a small tower of candy jawbreakers and truffle boxes tucked under her chin. Taking one last look around the troughs of crimson jellybeans and chocolate-covered almonds, she lamented the loss of her favorite candy apples.

“You can’t buy good candy apples anywhere these days. They come packaged and with coconuts. I hate coconuts,” she said. “Only here do they make them right.”

“Here” is Candy World, a 30-year-old neighborhood staple on Chambers Street that closed yesterday after the store’s owner, Alan Silver, lost his lease.

“I was in denial for a while,” Mr. Silver said. “But maybe this will put me in a place where I will be making money as opposed to struggling after 9/11.”

After Mr. Silver says he battled tooth-and-nail to buy the five-story brick building, whose upper floors are vacant, the landlord, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church of the Bronx, sold it instead to a pair of buyers who plan to renovate it.

Mr. Silver said he is looking for a new space but hasn’t found anything he liked in the neighborhood. He does plan to reopen the shop in a different locale, although he is not sure when and where.

“All options are open right now,” he said.

Some of his customers spoke of a narrowing of options.

“We are losing all these stores that afford us the opportunity to shop for our families,” a Candy World shopper for more than 25 years, Jeanette Mihal, said.”We need more than just fast-food restaurants.”

When asked what treat she favored in the store, she said: “Knowing the owner and being able to chitchat. I don’t like going to Duane Reade.”

Mr. Silver opened his first candy shop at Chambers Street more than 30 years ago after reading a newspaper article about a confectionery show.

“I went to the show and took some notes,” he said. “It seemed like it would be easy to do. And after ruining loads of chocolate, I eventually got the hang of it.”

The neighborhood was very different back then, he said, mostly small business and artists. Business thrived when more residents moved to the area and several schools opened. In the months following September 11, however, business in the shop, just minutes away from the World Trade Center, plummeted. Mr. Silver took out loans and received federal grants to keep his shop afloat, but business rebounded only slowly. Several months ago, the landlord sold the building, requiring him to vacate.

All day yesterday, customers lured by the sign promising 50% off streamed through the door by the dozens, purging Candy World of its sugar-saturated inventory. To some of his regulars, Mr. Silver handed out boxes of Lindt chocolates, in a Santa Claus-like gesture. Prices on items continued to slip throughout the day as Mr. Silver attempted to meet his goal of having nothing left.

Inventory not sold was packed into boxes for shipping. But to where? Mr. Silver said he did not know. Everything else would be left behind. “I just don’t have a place to put it right now,” he said.

As for the customers, they knew exactly what to do with the candy. One of them stood near the door eyeing the five-canister jellybean dispenser. “I am going to buy the whole display,” the man said. “I bet it’s like eight bucks. And I will just eat it all over time.”