Yes, those market traders are going to find out that they’re not going to be selling more
Published:
February 5, 2015 at 8:04am
Former PN minister Michael Falzon puts it aptly when he says that they should change their act and not their stage. I wrote pretty much the same thing a couple of days ago: that if people can’t be fagged to walk the maybe 50 metres from Cafe Cordina to the market now, then it’s because they’re not interested in the market at all and not because 50 metres will kill them.
When people are interested in a market, they’ll wake up early and trek to it.
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http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/49220/hawkers_should_change_their_act_not_their_stage__michael_falzon#.VNMVaCzLKp4
Isn’t this so obvious? But then again, some people wouldn’t know what hit if you clobbered them with an aircraft carrier.
Its actually pretty sad that these hawkers think they can occupy some of the best real estate within our capital to garner more trade, when in fact all retailers everywhere have suffered drastic drops in sales, mainly due to the internet, where many go to buy all sorts of things, even under garments.
So Mr. Muscat shifting the stalls is not the solution for their future, it’s their business plan which is obsolete.
“When people are interested in a market, they’ll wake up early and trek to it.”
Exactly! Like they do for the barbecue sets at Lidl.
They will probably be selling even less because many people are saying that they will boycott the Valletta market if it is placed near Renzo Piano’s magnificent new parliament.
I seriously doubt that anybody boycotting the market to protest against aesthetic insenitivity actually falls within the hawkers’ core target. Well, perhaps they’ll see a drop in sales of coloured wayfarers.
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2015-02-05/local-news/Chamber-of-Commerce-joins-chorus-against-monti-move-to-Ordnance-Street-6736130162
‘…At the same time the Malta Chamber strongly deplores the state of affairs at the new entrance to Malta’s capital where a handful of hawkers seem to have been given the sacrosanct right to block Valletta’s new entrance with shabby stalls and kiosks. This is certainly not in line with the image which the Renzo Piano entrance is intended to project. The Malta Chamber therefore urges the authorities to take the necessary steps to immediately remove these stalls and kiosks and to draw up a proper plan for the use of the peripheral area.
As it claimed to a wide consensus in its Economic Vision 2014-2020, the Malta Chamber advocates the abandoning of an ‘everything goes’ mentality once and for all, in favour of a quantum leap of quality also in this regard. Quality is a maxim the country needs to adopt in all areas, and every effort must be done not to undermine this objective.’
So they never saw it coming eh? Some vision.
Michael Falzon is one of the most level-headed, no-nonsense politicians we’ve ever had. The PN’s loss.
Michael Falzon is not the same type as Ian Castaldi Paris, Cyrus Engerer, Robert Musumeci, Franco Debono, Lou Bondi, Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, Jesmond Mugliett – he is made of sterner stuff.
He is a politician who matured during Malta’s worst period when democracy was truly threatened and Malta was burning.
He is no opportunist who appeared from the comfort of some foreign country after the dust had settled nor is he some prima donna who requires constant attention or a spineless person requiring endless reassurance.
He may have been disappointed with the PN, and rightfully so, for a number of years, he may have denounced the PN but never renounced his Nationalist credentials.
I have been in business for 30 years. In the first 15 of those years, the hawkers were a substantial part of my business’s turnover, but since then sales at all market stalls have been dwindling.
The more intelligent of my market clients changed their line of business, but unfortunately the least enterpreneurial and least intelligent still think they can make a living from their stalls and keep blaming different situations for their lack of sales.
Cardona should put the situation as it is to them rather than giving them another imaginary glimpse of hope by relocating them to Ordnance Street.
Cardona should at least increase the market stall rentals significantly enough to reflect the prime high street location these hawkers will be enjoying.
These low cost businesses should not be privileged the way they already are.
Most of them are known to have made substantial earnings over the years in some form or other. In fact many are reputedly rich families by now.
But alas some politicians conveniently believe their professional moaning.
I know of people who wake up as early as 6 am to go to a particular chain of supermarkets to shop and the reason is exactly as you said. Because they have the right products at the right price.
Is it merely a coincidence that NO other European capital features a conglomeration of hawkers at its entrance or shall we put it down to an other revolution orchestrated by Sandro Chetchuti et al.
They are forgetting that the public can show their disapproval by not shopping at the market.
The kind of people who still shop at the market wouldn’t even know there’s a debate raging on. The rest are a handful of tourists, who wouldn’t follow Maltese current affairs.