How Western Sydney businesses are coping with COVID lockdown

Business owners in Sydney’s Covid-stricken southwest are determined to hang on as the area goes through hell.

After being thrown into Sydney’s toughest lockdown, Fairfield business woman Sylvia Garcia’s first reaction was understandably negative.

When Mrs Garcia arrived at Theo’s Cecinas Butchery & Smallgoods to start the work week on Monday July 19, she left the shop’s wall-to-wall display cabinet uncharacteristically empty.

“I felt like people wouldn’t want to come to Fairfield at all,” she recalled. “It was a horrible feeling — really isolating.”

And financially devastating. As much as 90 per cent of Theo’s sales are to customers from outside the area.

But it didn’t take long for the and her family to shake off the shutdown blues and set about making the best of a bad situation.

Sylvia Garcia and her son Nicolas Garcia, at their shop, Theo's Cecinas and Butchery, in Fairfield. Picture: Justin Lloyd

Mrs Garcia’s son, fourth-generation butcher Nicolas, triggered the turnaround in attitude and activity. He had long wanted to get Theo’s into doing deliveries. Now was the time.

So he put the word out on social media. The orders flooded in.

“It took off straight away,” Mr Garcia said.

Theo’s is now providing contactless delivery to customers as far away as the Hills and the Shire, with plans to go further south to Wollongong and even the ACT when possible.

Mrs Garcia said: “This is a learning curve for us. But we are embracing it.

“Things will get better,” Mrs Garcia said. “We just need to provide the service that our customers are used to.”

And that’s why the 25-year-old store at Fairfield West now looks as inviting as it ever has, with the display cabinet once again brimming with meaty treats.

Gabriel Violaris, owner of Smart St Fish Market in Fairfield. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Gabriel Violaris, owner of Smart St Fish Market in downtown Fairfield, has taken a similarly half-glass full view. He is not skimping on stock, even if trade is way down.

In the first week of this lockdown, turnover was 80 per cent short of what it normally would be; in the second week it was off by 70 per cent and, since then, 50 per cent.

“You are not going to make money now,” Mr Violaris said. “It’s about surviving.”

“I believe that we shouldn’t give up. Soldier on.”

He has avoided lay-offs, but his five part-timers are all on reduced hours.

“Everyone is earning a little bit,” he said. “It’s a chance for people to pay their bills.”

A few shops down the road at Eye Concepts, optometrist Thuc-Quyen Nguyen-Phuoc said “the Fairfield area has taken the hardest hit” of the eight Local Government Areas under tighter lockdown.

Vivien Le, (left) practice manager and Thuc-Quyen Nguyen-Phuoc, optometrist at Eye Concepts in Fairfield. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Ms Nguyen-Phuoc is in a better position than most to judge, given she lives in the Canterbury-Bankstown LGA — one of the other two areas that along with Fairfield were first to enter restrictions since July 18.

“After the announcement of the police presence, Fairfield was a ghost town,” she said.

“There is a much bigger financial and mental strain” from this lockdown than previous ones, Ms Nguyen-Phuoc said. Like Mr Violaris, she described the current aim as “survival.”

Eye Concepts practice manager Vivien Le said “some days we have no business at all.”

Likewise, across the road, Al Shakarchi Bakery co-owner Mohammed Rashedi said business was “dead.”

The near empty streets of Fairfield, during the city's prolonged Covid-19 coronavirus lockdown. Picture: Saeed Khan/AFP

“This month I don’t pay the rent,” said Mr Rashedi, who only opened his shop in January.

A stone’s throw away, at Alex’s Dry Cleaning, owner Alex Younan has just completed the paperwork for government financial support. Business is down by more than 90 per cent compared to normal levels.

Still, he tried to be optimistic.

“We are going to get past this, with the help of our community and other communities,” Mr Younan said.

Alex Younan, owner of Alex’s Dry Cleaning in Fairfield. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The federal Member of Parliament for the area, Labor’s Chris Bowen, said people were supporting local businesses, whether by getting takeaway once a week or even just buying a coffee when they didn’t really need it.

“The community is keeping them alive,” the McMahon MP said.

Mr Bowen’s electorate covers three LGAs now in severe lockdown — Fairfield, Blacktown and Holroyd. He said easing restrictions preventing construction workers and tradespeople from leaving had to be “an urgent priority”.

Tellingly, by far the busiest shopfronts in Fairfield were the respiratory clinic, offering Covid-19 testing, and Centrelink.