Bus strike hits Chch businesses

Press, 14 December 1985, Page 1

Bus strike hits Chch businesses

By

JEFF HAMPTON

Many retailers in central Christchurch are feeling the effect of the bus drivers’ strike.

Sales have dropped as much as 30 per cent, some say, as shoppers stay home because of the lack of buses and parking problems. “Generally the effect has been quite marked,” said the chairman of the City Mall Businessmen’s Association, Mr B. J. Hanafin.

“There just aren’t the crowds about.”

“It has a long-term problem — December spells the success or failure of trading.” Some retailers could find they were overstocked or unable to sell Christmas stock, he said. A jeweller in central Christchurch said, that trade was “as dead as the dodo.”

“It’s a very bad thing this time of the year.” The chairman of the City South Businessmen’s Association, Mr Knox Dowson, said that businesses in the area had been affected bv the strike.

Parking was at a premium and this was deterring some shoppers. Suburban shopping centres and malls appear likely to reap the benefit as people choose to shop closer to home. Retailers in Merivale, Riccartoh, New Brighton, and Hornby approached by “The Press” yesterday all reported that sales were up to expectations. They said, however, that it was too early to tell whether suburban shops had benefited because of a drop of sales in central Christchurch. The president of the Can-terbury-Westland Retailers’ Association, Mr Mark Ballantyne, said that the strike “must have some effect on retailers.” He did not know, however, how they would measure the effect, as many factors could contribute to a downturn, in sales. *: Buses have now not run for 13 days since a dispute over a drivers’ claim for a $32 a week industry allowance began in October.