Second lockdown worse than first for CBD business

We were somewhere on the edge of recovery, near the Mall Pigeon, when the grudge began to take hold.

Jodie Muray at Cafe Felici. Picture: Sarah Reed

There are more empty chairs than people in Leigh Street. A block away in Peel Street, it’s much the same. Even for daylight hours, Hindley Street feels quiet and a little sad.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in December. Christmas is in sight. The usual frantic Christmas shopping buzz of Rundle Mall is, if not entirely quietened, then certainly subdued. Rundle Street is even quieter.

The empty shops are obvious. Standing out like missing teeth in a smile. In many others, the remaining staff members outnumber patrons. In Flight Centre in Rundle Mall, there are four staff and no customers.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s contention that the country is out of recession and heading to the economic sunlands seems far-fetched to business owners in Adelaide’s CBD. Still, small business owners in the city are facing up to the crisis with something approaching stoicism. A feeling that they have made it this far through 2020, so they may as well keep going.

On Rundle Street, Cafe Felici owner Jodie Murray simply says: “It’s not supposed to be this way but we are not about to give up.’’ Murray and partner Luciano Liguoro are working seven days a week, 7am to 4pm, to “make ends meet’’.

Murray has lost Christmas parties. Her pre-COVID 40-person maximum has been cut to 11. That’s half of what it was before last month’s strict lockdown came into force.

“No one wants a party for 10 people,’’ she says. The uncertainty about what happens next is not helping. Murray is hoping some of the restrictions are lifted so the parties planned for the last week before Christmas, which have not been cancelled yet, can still go ahead. “Nobody seems to know and nobody wants to tell us,’’ she says.

There is no one story to tell.

Among the business owners who spoke to The Advertiser, some are doing better than others, while most believe the second lockdown has caused more trouble than the first back in March.

Some are furious with how the State Government has handled the second lockdown, others more accepting, even as they lament the fact that it was not necessary.

All agree the second lockdown, though only three days long in the end, stalled the momentum their businesses were just beginning to build. That it created a fear and uncertainty in the community that took people out of the city to hunker down in the suburbs and spend their money in shopping centres.

They have all noticed that there are just not as many people in the city at a time when they were hoping the Christmas rush would make up for all that has been lost in 2020. With office workers encouraged to work from home, there are fewer people taking a quick shopping expedition at lunch time.

The pigeon stands vigil over an empty Rundle Mall. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Kelly Barnes

Topham Mall newsagency owner Andy Tran, whose shop is below the usually full Topham Mall carpark, says succinctly: “Businesses in the CBD are in the shit. It’s even worse than compared to March. The second time, people are more scared.’’

For jewellery manufacturer Sarah Rothe, who runs her own shop in Regent Arcade, 2020 has been the year of cancelled birthday parties and now cancelled Christmas parties.

“People can get away with buying less gifts,’’ she says.

Rothe says she “had a little cry in the shop’’ when the November lockdown was announced. She says she has had only two months when trade was higher than in 2019, though one was in November.

While walk-in custom is down because of the lack of office workers and tourists, the upside has been more people are commissioning her work.

It’s a fair bet that no one has been hit harder than Australia The Gift on Rundle Mall. Australia The Gift sells souvenirs to tourists who want to take a little bit of Australia home for themselves or as a present.

Before COVID, there were two Australia The Gifts on the Mall. Now there is one and that is being kept going because of the Federal Government’s JobKeeper.

“Ninety per cent of our business is based on international travel,’’ store manager Pascale Venchiarutti says. She knows what’s needed to save the business but it’s out of her hands. “Once we get the vaccine, the international tourists can come back and that will be a godsend,’’ she says.

This is the time of the year that should be most lucrative for retailers of all stripes. Yet, many can’t wait for 2020 to end, praying, hoping, believing 2021 can’t be any worse.

Mad Zombies Collectables owner Nick Tridente. Picture: Michael Marschall

Mad Zombie Collectables owner Nick Tridente has endured a double blast this year. COVID was obviously one but Tridente also ran a gel-blaster business in the basement of the shop in Gay’s Arcade. Tridente closed the business after the blasters were reclassified as firearms, meaning owners had to obtain a gun licence.

“We closed overnight,’’ he says. “The government shut us down – we had to become gun dealers.”

Tridente says retailers need more support from the State Government because it created the climate of fear that has put people off coming to the city. He also says Adelaide City Council needed to do more to promote the city as a destination, and carparking should be cheaper and free on the weekends.

“The best our council can do is put an overpriced chicken in the Mall,’’ he says, referring to the giant steel pigeon recently unveiled at the junction of Gawler Place and the Mall.

He’s frustrated by the Marshall government’s handling of the pandemic. “Ultimately, the people who get paid an exorbitant amount of money to do their jobs have not done their jobs,’’ he says.

But not all sectors are feeling the same pain.

At Clarity Records on Pulteney Street, owner Matt Horvath says 2020 has been similar to 2019. It may be because selling vinyl records is not only a niche market, it’s a growing one as well.

His business is also one that benefits from people working at home. More time in the home office equals more time to listen to your favourite music. And there is something reassuringly tactile about flipping over an album that you’ll never find on a streaming service.

“If people want to listen to an album, the experience is even better for the physical experience,’’ he says.

Leigh St Barber Alec Mastrangelo. Picture: Brad Fleet

Having to change sides of an album every 20 minutes or so is also the ideal excuse to move yourself out of the home office chair.

Book sales have also held up well as people spend more time at home and run out of things to watch on Netflix.

Jason Lake owns Imprints, a much-loved institution of a book shop on Hindley Street.

Lake says it’s pointless to compare 2020 to any other year.

“We have no expectations; we just open the doors and deal with the day as it happens,’’ he says. “

It is what it is.’’ Lake says in the first lockdown fiction was much in demand but cookbooks from restaurants Africola and Parwana have done particularly well.

He says one positive of the year has been that South Australians are looking to buy local more often.

“Because they know if they don’t, they will see places disappear,” he says.

Back up on Leigh Street, barber Alec Mastrangelo has seen everything the street has to offer over 46 years in business.

He says the once bustling street, home to small bars and restaurants, has not been this quiet since he started his business all those years ago. His business has dropped 30 per cent since the second lockdown.

“The Premier has done the wrong thing in telling people to work from home,’’ he says.

“At the moment, it looks like a ghost town. It’s almost scary.’’