Retailers vow: ‘We’ll stay open until boys in blue shut us down’
A GALWAY boutique is to reopen on Saturday in protest at the vast array of non-essential goods being sold in Dunnes Stores and other chain stores.
David McCarthy, the founder of Lanidor Ireland, based in Eyre Street in Galway city, said that the shop will open from 1pm on Saturday and will stay open ‘until the boys in blue tell us to shut it down’.
Speaking to the Irish Daily Mail yesterday, he said that he and his wife have had very strong support from the public and from politicians ‘who know which way the wind is blowing’.
Mr McCarthy said that he will have a photographer on site to document the reopening of the shop – which is within 100 metres of a Dunnes outlet – and the potential shutdown by the gardaí. He is fully supported by his wife, Caroline, the store’s manager, who will be opening the shop on Saturday.
Last week, she told the Irish Daily Mail and that she was ‘fed up’ with large retail stores being allowed to sell clothes while small shops remain closed.
‘They keep telling us that we are all in this together, but we are not all in this together. It is one rule for us and another rule for the chain stores,’ she said.
The chain stores have been able to sell non-essential items, such as clothes, because their shops sell food. The Government has warned that the chain stores must sell essential goods only, but some stores have continued to ignore the rules.
Last week, Ciarán Fitzpatrick of Banba Toymaster on Dublin’s Mary Street, told the Irish Daily Mail that he had gone to two garda stations to complain that chain stores were selling toys without any food purchase necessary.