A recent survey of 28 businesses in downtown Edgartown shows the pandemic continues to have widespread and often dire impacts on Island commercial districts.

Although an annual rite of passage, the quest for summer employees has grown more extreme and spread wider this year, driven by a perfect storm of factors including and a housing crisis at its peak.

Shuttered for months — and in some cases a year — Vineyard restaurants, retailers and grocery stores are opening their doors for the season again with hope for a more normal spring and summer.

With the Covid-19 pandemic raging, the normally quiet down-Island Main streets have turned ghostly, as the off-season tests the Vineyard winter economy and social fabric.

The owners of Island Food Products have signed a purchase and sale agreement to buy the historic Oak Bluffs grocery Tony’s Market, marking a first foray into retail for IFP.

Leslie’s Drug Store, the family-run pharmacy in downtown Vineyard Haven that was due to close at the end of the year, will be able to stay open after all, the owners confirmed.

Thanksgiving weekend brought the usual holiday shoppers to down-Island towns, though not in the numbers and density of pre-pandemic seasons.

Starting a new business on Martha’s Vineyard takes courage during the best of times. But even in the face of the pandemic, optimistic risk-takers have opened shops, galleries, restaurants and services.

Leslie’s Drug Store, a family-run pharmacy and Main street institution in Vineyard Haven since 1948, will permanently close at the end of this year, after 72 years in business.

The Edgartown Board of Trade elected three new board members on Wednesday.