FREE!
costa calida EDITION
south edition
Your English Newspaper
roundtownnews.com
Issue 786
3-9 Jan 2014 7 - 13 NovEMBER 2014
Downtown business activity weak in Torrevieja by Keith Nicol
Zombie’s on Parade
Halloween’s zombie walk WITH THE music of Michael Jackson filling the streets, hundreds of local dancers took to Torrevieja’s streets on Friday night to enjoy the Halloween Parade. While thousands of people lined the streets, with the majority dressed as zombies, vampires, wolves and vampires, the town’s main square started to take on the look of a cemetery or a set of the ‘Walking Dead’. Read the full story on page 23.
ALTHOUGH TORREVIEJA’S Department of Commerce and APYMECO have introduced a number of schemes to boost trade in the city centre, trade figures have not been on the rise and some more stores have closed their doors. Yesterday, the historic downtown store “Muñoz Espinosa” closed for business on Thursday after 44 years serving clients in the city centre. The president of the Association of Small and Medium Retailers Torrevieja (Apymeco) Caridad Salmerón, said that “business this summer has not met the expectations of traders, with this summer being very strange. There have been many people but very few were spending with quite a few businesses hoping that September would save the poor summer. But this has not happened. September was very weak and has not met expectations.” Salmeron noted that a local survey performed by Apymeco contrasted with data provided by the council. “Councillor for Commerce Agustina Esteve, said, the summer was good for traders according to the data they have, but we do not know where they found this data.”
Moreover, Salmeron also noted that since the beginning of the crisis the association has noticed a decline in the number of partners, which have seen a 15% drop with today’s figure around 200 retail partners. One of the reasons for this decline is associated with the closure of businesses, according to the association. José Manuel Espinosa, one of the creators of the Merchants Association of Torrevieja and president of the organization between 1995 and 1998, said, “we have experienced a social change. There used to be a scale of values and now another obstacle to town centre business has appeared; a way of living that is different, more focused on shopping centres and other forms of commerce, that needs to be addressed.” Espinosa is the owner of the appliance store ‘Muñoz Espinosa’ which closed yesterday after 44 years serving clients in the main artery of the city, on Calle Ramon Gallud. On being forced to make the heart breaking decision to close, he stated; “the sensible entrepreneur closed a few years ago, but instead we have continued fighting and trying to keep a company going.” Continued on page 8
8