The Chamber of Commerce reacted to the Minister of Economy and the Department of Economic Affairs’ newly assigned closing times for the stores in the coming Easter weekend. The government wants to implement mandatory closing times in order to ensure that they are closed during the upcoming Easter weekend. They have to be closed on Friday, Sunday and Monday with the exception of certain casinos and facilities inside the hotels. This news was not well received by the store owners.
The president of the Chamber of Commerce, Omar Tromp, explained why these sudden changes occurred. At the start of the week, he said that there would be exemptions given, like there are every year, to have the stores remain open (till max 9:00 pm) during the Easter holiday, and thus including Good Friday, Easter, and Easter Monday.
The Chamber of Commerce saw that there had been an adjustment made that required stores to be closed on Friday, Sunday, and Monday after all. They regretfully had to announce this one day before the stores were planning on being open and after many businesses already planned their days around this being the case. Owners, employees and, customers were counting on these stores to be open as per usual.
Now you can expect there to be a rush to certain shops this afternoon as well as on Saturday so that people can make all their required purchases for the weekend knowing. Tromp explained that this is a weekend in which many people are celebrating, whether it be for religious purposes or simply enjoying the time off from school. Either way, families are coming together to try and make the best of the crisis situation we are in. All of this is slightly disrupted by the closing of the shops so abruptly.
