DESERTED CENTRES BATTLE ON
TRADE at two of the Gold Coast’s biggest shopping centres might have dropped but some outlets are soldiering on in the face of the coronavirus slump.
Harbour Town, the city’s biggest outlet shopping centre, was a shadow of its usually busy self yesterday but a stack of food outlets – including Candyland, Donut King, Goldtein’s, Grill’d Burger, Guzman Y Gomez and Nandos plus more – remain open for takeaways.
Many of the retail stores were closed yesterday.
An employee from one still open said she and her fellow staff members were concerned for safety: “We don’t understand why we aren’t in lockdown, we’re not even essential. I feel it’s really dangerous. We feel it’s not safe at all to be working.”
Harbour Town is encouraging shoppers to practice social distancing and correct hygiene including hand washing, with sanitisers available throughout the centre. Beauty providers are now closed with no dine-in food options at Harbour Town Eats but takeaway or delivery continue. Sanctum Kitchen and Bar manager Sam Gogia said his sales were down.
“We’re only doing takeaways and we have been forced to come up with an altered menu to make it more accessible to people, along with dropping the prices a bit,” he said. “We have gone from doing about 50 kilos of coffee a week, down to 25.”
Candyland has also struggled to get customers with 17-year-old employee Rhian Youngson saying: “The cinemas shutting really hurt us. We’ve been really quiet.
“My hours have been very limited. They have probably dropped by half.”
Biggera Waters friends Lynda Clark, 61, and Ngaire Donald, 61, live across from Harbour Town and said they went to the Discount Fruit
Barn to do their usual Sunday shopping. “The stock is a little bit low in some areas,” Ms Clark said.
Robina Town Centre was also empty. Usually on a Sunday the centre is packed with people getting their groceries for the week, with line-ups in department stores. The majority of retail stores and food outlets were shut with signs outside of each saying: “temporarily closed”.
There were few shops open at Nobby Beach, with a dozen-or-so people grabbing a morning takeaway coffee.