Closed for good reason – retailers

Two of Barbados’ major retail stores agree that the recent two-day closure was a “small price to pay” considering the significant increase of COVID-19 cases on the island.

Both Store Location Manager at Cave Shepherd, Mark Clarke and Managing Director of Abed’s, Eddy Abed, told Barbados TODAY the safety of Barbadians was of paramount importance.

Last week Prime Minister Mia Mottley announced that Monday and Tuesday would be bank holidays to give health officials the opportunity to conduct contact tracing following a spike of COVID-19 cases.

Clarke said while Cave Shepherd would have lost revenue from being closed both days it was for a greater good.

“Obviously there would have been a loss of trade seeing that all of our stores would have been closed, but all for the right reasons because we always were in sync with the Government and the protocols and what they advised, so obviously it was a loss of revenue but it was all for the right reasons,” he told Barbados TODAY.

He said businesses in the retail sector had made sure to enforce the protocols.

“I must say that all of our protocols have been adhered to from the inception when we re-opened and the team members and the customers are adhering. If you realized, through the retail sector there have not been any known cases derived from within these entities and it speaks to us doing the correct things,” he pointed out.

Clarke said team members would now be given face shields as an extra precaution.

He said continued sanitization of high-contact areas would be done throughout the day.

Abed was also of the view that the two-day shutdown was more than about money.

“To be closed and not have any revenue for two days will in fact hurt us but at the end of the day it is a small price to pay. We were closed for close to two months last year and I don’t ever, ever want to have to go back to that so this is a very small price to pay,” he said.

Abed explained that one of his main goals was to keep his staff safe.

“The truth is that the priority that we have here is to make sure that our staff is in the best position possible in terms of health and are comfortable to perform their duties. We’ve asked all of our staff who have been in contact with anyone who may have tested positive recently to go and have themselves tested. (randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)