Melbourne shop owners fear the worst as second lockdown begins
For Melbourne business owners like Mary Gurry, the city’s return to stage three restrictions is nothing short of devastating.
“I’m 66 years old, I’ve run businesses for 40 years, I’ve never seen this situation,” says Gurry, who runs Centrestage, a costume hire store on the Sydney Road shopping strip in Brunswick, in Melbourne’s inner north.
From 11.59pm on Wednesday, new stage three lockdown laws announced by the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, have come into effect, meaning certain businesses – such as bars, beauty salons and gyms – must close.
Others – including pubs, restaurants and cafes – can continue to trade under restrictions that still prevent them from doing their core business: serving food to diners and drinks to punters inside their establishments.
Then there are businesses like Gurry’s. Retailers may remain open, but the public is allowed to leave home only to buy essential items.
Regardless, a ban on gatherings means the events and parties that drive demand to her shop are out of the question.
Gurry says the business she runs with her son has managed to sell a few costumes for Zoom parties and the like during the pandemic, having reopened after Anzac Day.
Now it will be shut for the next six weeks.
“We’re not an essential business in my opinion and it’s not much fun sitting in a shop with not many customers,” she says. “There’s not a lot of reason to stay open.
“So we were here in the house weighing up whether or not to dress up in inflatable dinosaur costumes and go play soccer in the park next to the [locked down public housing] flats to entertain the kids.”
The Victorian Chamber of Commerce predicts that this six-week lockdown will spell the end for some businesses. Gurry, the president of the Sydney Road Brunswick Association, is sure some businesses along the strip – known for its bridal shops and fashion boutiques catering to Melbourne’s multicultural community – will not make it through.
“I’d say that’s fairly definite,” she says. “It’s hard to say and hard to know what people are relying on. We’re all getting jobkeeper, but it doesn’t pay the power bills, and the rent, and the water, the phones, the rates. Jobkeeper does not cover all that.”
Others who can stay open say they will. Ronald King menswear shop owner Andrew King is determined to keep trading, though he acknowledges revenue will be hurt by the lack of foot traffic on Main Street in Croydon, in Melbourne’s outer east.
King predicts about 60% of the shops there will remain open. But the cafes will only be offering takeaways, and the local bank is likely to close during the lockdown, he says.
“We will continue to trade, God willing. I’ve been in business for 50 years plus, I’m just prepared to weather through come what may.”
Roger Yeo’s Lion City Asian Grocery is also an essential business. His supermarket at the Pinewood Village shopping square is nestled among cafes, restaurants, a Coles, independent retailers, and a small family-owned cinema in Mount Waverley, in Melbourne’s east.
Yeo says the main problem for him will be a shortage of supply, in part due to panic buying, while labour costs will increase because of heightened health and safety requirements.
“People still need to buy food,” Yeo says. “But in the sense of logistics and the margins, and hiring more people to sanitise the shop, it’s going to cost a lot of effort financially and emotionally.”
Yeo is also certain businesses in the small suburban shopping centre will hit the wall.
The business owners say they accept the government’s decision to reimpose the lockdown, as frustrating as it is, though they hope for support to get them through.
King says it is vital that landlords offer genuine rent relief, and he hopes for further help from local government through discounts on rates and parking charges.
The future of the jobkeeper subsidy will also be crucial. Asked if the package should be extended, Andrews said on Wednesday he had stressed to the prime minister, Scott Morrison, that there would be “greater needs in some parts of Victoria than there will be in other parts of our nation”.
The federal treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, also suggested on Wednesday there would be a “new phase of income support” after September, though he did not give more details.
Gurry is hopeful her business will make it through the six weeks, provided “nothing disastrous happens”.
“They’ll have to make some announcements,” she says. “We will be all out on the streets and not surviving if they don’t.
“The federal government absolutely has to extend jobkeeper, and jobseeker for that matter. For the little business like ours, for the poor cafes and bars that had a glimmer of hope recently. All that has been dashed for six weeks.”