A clean break!
Costume shop sells disinfectants at cost
You’d think they were selling gold at a discount the way people lined up outside Ricky’s NYC, the costume and beauty supply store in the Village.
It turns out they were selling a couple of other precious commodities — Lysol and toilet paper.
“It’s been hell,“said Chris Williams, 29, a construction worker from Brooklyn. “This is the only place that has these things. It’s like a sneaker launch, but for cleaning products. I came all the way from Crown Heights for this.”
The endless search for Angel Soft is over. Store executives said they’re pitching in during the coronavirus crisis to relieve a little of the stress. With toilet paper and disinfectant in high demand, Ricky’s NYC has become the answer to empty py across the city.
Ricky’s is even selling the items at cost.
“We realized we had an abundance of inventory and that people needed these items in these troubled times,“said Jordan Strum, Ricky’s executive manager. “People were being priced out, so we decided to sell at cost. We are continually restocking. We want to get the shelves word out.”
That’s right. No price gouging here.
There’s just one catch. “We are limiting the amounts you can buy to help as many people as possible,” Strum said.
The store limits purchases to two items at a time except for police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses and EMTs — who can buy three.
“We’re giving extra to the first responders and the elderly, too,” said store manager Sabrina Salim, 30, of the Bronx, who stocked shelves in a surgical mask and gloves.
“I tried to buy the stuff on my own, but places were gouging,“she said. “We’re supposed to be helping one another, not ripping one another off.”
One day last week, the line to get in the store went down the block and snaked around the corner. Social distancing made the line longer.
“You can’t really get the stuff anywhere else,“said Zuny Oliver, 37, a health care administrator’s assistant. “We use these products to clean our homes to stay safe. We don’t know when we’ll be able to get them again, so we’re buying where we can.“
“The stores are sold out, and the online prices are skyrocketing,“said Mira Griffin, 21, a department store worker from Manhattan. “We need the stuff to stay safe. I want to buy everything I can.”