Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Busi­ness­es in Port-of-Spain have seen a sig­nif­i­cant drop in sales fol­low­ing the dis­cov­ery of Shan­non Ban­field's de­com­pos­ing body at IAM and Com­pa­ny last Thurs­day.

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (Do­ma) Gre­go­ry Aboud told the T&T Guardian: "There has been an ef­fect on the over­all per­for­mance of busi­ness­es in the city. We have made a re­quest for a vis­i­ble pres­ence of the po­lice in the city and we have had some pos­i­tive re­sponse to that re­quest.

"We have seen an im­prove­ment in the vis­i­ble pres­ence of the po­lice ser­vice since the in­ci­dent and we are con­fi­dent that safe­ty and nor­mal con­di­tions will re­turn to Port-of-Spain for Christ­mas."

Sta­cy McPher­son, a su­per­vi­sor Miguel Moses and Sons on Fred­er­ick Street, said the pop­u­lar fab­ric store has had few­er sales in the last few days.

"This is a wor­ry to us be­cause we are ap­proach­ing Christ­mas which is sup­posed to be the busiest time for our store but cus­tomers are trick­ling in. Things are gen­er­al­ly slow from last Thurs­day," she said.

She said it was a wor­ry­ing trend and she is hop­ing that in the com­ing days things will im­prove.

"We are keep­ing our fin­gers crossed that things will get bet­ter by next week," she said.

Jack Man­az­er, man­ag­er of Jack in the Box on Queen Street, a store which sells brand name colognes and per­fumes, said he has no­ticed a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline in sales.

"I can't even tell you what my sales were yes­ter­day. You would not be­lieve me," he said.

While ad­mit­ted the store had been af­fect­ed by the slow­down in eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty over the last few months, Man­az­er said in the last few days sales have slumped by 90 per cent.

"Just like the Unit­ed States, the month of De­cem­ber rep­re­sents 60 to 70 per cent of an­nu­al sales for a busi­ness. If I don't make in the month of De­cem­ber, I don't know what will hap­pen," he said.

Man­az­er said af­ter in­vest­ing $100,000 to boost his busi­ness, this was the last thing he ex­pect­ed.

Ann Ay­oung Chee, man­ag­er of All in One Lim­it­ed on Char­lotte Street, said for the pop­u­lar re­tail out­let, which was al­ready be­ing af­fect­ed by the down­turn in the econ­o­my, the IAM in­ci­dent was a "dou­ble wham­my".She told the T&T Guardian: "You can see there is no build-up at the cash lines. When you look down at the floor it's not busy."

Aboud said Do­ma will go all out to pro­tect women who shop in the city.

"Women con­sti­tute be­tween 70 to 75 per cent of cus­tomers in Port-of-Spain. We are very de­ter­mined to pro­tect them. We know the best way to pro­tect them is to catch and pros­e­cute those ter­ri­ble mon­sters who have com­mit­ted this act," he said.