Florist risked losing $6k of stock after being ‘unfairly’ stopped from delivering during lockdown
A Top End florist was forced to complete 75 flower orders in just a few hours after they say they were the only florist in the NT forced to stop doing deliveries during the Covid lockdown.
Northern Territory
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A DARWIN florist has been forced to complete 75 flower orders in just a few hours after they say they were the only florist in the Territory forced to stop doing deliveries by police during the Covid lockdown.
Magnolia Flower Merchants creative director Sammy Perry said they were told to cease deliveries by NT Police on Wednesday after a complaint was made by the member of the public.
Ms Perry said they immediately did so, putting around $6000 worth of perishable stock at risk.
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However, all other florists around the Territory were allowed to continue doing contactless delivery throughout the lockdown.
“We found it a bit unfair that we were the only florist that got shut down,” she said.
“Everyone else continued trading – everyone nationally continued trading.
“(The police) said they wouldn’t shut anybody else down unless a complaint was made to them about that florist shop.
“We were just waiting for the news today (on Friday) to see if we could send out the flowers we had in the shop.”
Although Ms Perry and her team did manage to put together 75 bouquets and deliver them once the lockdown was lifted at 1pm Friday, she said it was an incredibly stressful experience.
“As soon as the lockdown was lifted we were able to send out 75 bunches, which is a record for any day we’ve been open. We had so much support from the community,” she said. “It was just very frustrating trying to manage a perishable product, especially in the Darwin climate.
“We had so many different departments telling us different things.”
NT Police incident controller Shaun Gill said business and trade was restricted to essential work or working from home during the lockdown.
“Police undertook an educational approach to enforcement of the CHO directions and followed up on reports of businesses that were not considered essential continuing to trade,” he said. “Police conducted spot checks on businesses but you will appreciate that we were not able to visit or contact every business premises in the lockdown zones to ensure compliance.”
Originally published as Florist risked losing $6k of stock after being ‘unfairly’ stopped from delivering during lockdown
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