Box Hill Chinese New Year festival cancelled amid coronavirus fears
Traders at Box Hill’s normally bustling food and shopping area claim business has dropped by half due to coronavirus fears, which earlier led to Saturday’s Chinese New Year Festival being abruptly cancelled.
Inner East
Don't miss out on the headlines from Inner East. Followed categories will be added to My News.
UPDATE: Box Hill’s normally bustling food and shopping precinct has been reduced to a ghost town as fear of the spreading coronavirus takes grip, with traders claiming business has dropped by 50 per cent.
And some traders are calling on centre management to cut their rent to help them cope with the sharp downturn in business.
The second case of coronavirus in Victoria was confirmed to be a man in his 60s who ate at a Glen Waverley restaurant on Australia Day.
The man is said to be recovering at home but it’s led to escalating fears of the disease, with traders at Box Hill now reporting a sharp decline in business.
Second Chapter Bar and Restaurant manager Allan Hwang said the precinct had been “dead since Sunday” and his business had halved.
“I’m pretty sure every business has dropped by at least 50 per cent,” he said.
“I think the news from Glen Waverley will only make it worse, too. I think (centre management) should stop the rent to help us through this, it’s not our fault no one is making money.”
>> Get your local news emailed to you. Sign up for your local Leader weekly newsletter here
Mr Hwang said about “eight out of 10 Asian people” were wearing face masks to manage their risk of catching coronavirus but he was sceptical it would make a difference.
“Everyone is wearing masks but I don’t think they’ll help,” he said.
Colourful Yunnan manager Charles Zhou said their trade had fallen by about 60 per cent in recent days.
“Mostly we just want reduced rent to help us survive this period,” he said.
“It’s the news from China that is affecting us but we can’t ask our customers to help out because they need to protect themselves from the risk. So therefore we need our rent reduced.”
Centre management have put a roster is in place to ensure toilets are cleaned every 20 minutes, with public hand sanitisers ordered for amenities located throughout the centre for anyone to use.
When the Whitehorse Leader visited this morning, the normally packed carpark at the centre was half full, while the mall and nearby Carrington Rd were mostly empty.
Box Hill’s biggest annual event was earlier cancelled over fears about the coronavirus outbreak.
The 2020 Chinese New Year Festival – scheduled for this Saturday – has been abruptly cancelled by the organisers, the Asian Business Association of Whitehorse (ABAW), just two days before the event.
The event organisers said the festival had been postponed in the “interests of the sponsors, people who worked on the festival and the benefit of the community”.
They said it was not a good time to run a festival and there was a huge “scare concern” around the outbreak of the virus.
“For cultural and commercial reasons, and out of respect for the difficulties currently being experienced by many people, Asian Business Association of Whitehorse has decided to postpone the 2020 Chinese New Year Festival,” president Tom Zheng said in a statement.
“This decision is acknowledged by the City of Whitehorse, who will continue to work with ABAW to reschedule the festival.”
The event attracted more than 150,000 people to the streets of Box Hill last year.
Box Hill Central manager Richard Devlin said they were disappointed the Lunar New Year festivities had been cancelled but respected the decision.
“We are disappointed the ABAW has cancelled this weekend’s celebrations, but we understand and respect the concerns of many people in our community,” he said.
“The safety and wellbeing of our customers, retailers and the broader community is always our priority and we are continuing to monitor and act upon the information being shared from our federal and state health departments.”
Whitehorse Mayor Sharon Ellis told 3AW this morning the decision came as a “bit of a surprise”.
“We weren’t seeing this coming, we thought it could possibly be discussed but all the sudden we got the announcement,” she said.
Cr Ellis said the decision was made solely by the ABAW.
“What council provides is some assistance with traffic, security and basically garbage and the clean-up afterwards, that’s our main input,” she said.
MORE LEADER NEWS:
TEEN COPS 37 CHARGES AFTER TOBACCO THEFT SPREE
RUBBISH TRUCK DRIVER TRASHES OVAL WITH SHORTCUT
DRIVER’S CLOSE CALL WITH TRAIN AFTER BOOZY NIGHT
VETERAN CROSSING SUPERVISOR SHARES SAFETY TIPS
“We are obviously overseeing it because it is in Box Hill and our citizens are obviously attending.
“Any decisions such as cancellation, even guest speakers, the invited list is basically up to the ABAW.”
At this stage, March 21 has been proposed as an alternative date for the event.