Five days after Hanoi authorities banned parking lots on 262 streets, many traders said they found it hard to maintain sales since the number of customers has considerably decreased.
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| Traffic police held a motorbike in custody for parking on the sidewalk of Hang Gai street in Hanoi's Hoan Kiem District. -Photo: Tuoi Tre |
A woman callingherself Hoa, the owner of a silk shop on Hang Gai Street in Hoan Kiem District, told Tuoi Tre, “The removal of a parking lot on the street has not only discouraged people who want to come for shopping but also caused inconvenience to local residents.”
Approaching an eatery of “nem” (fermented Vietnamese pork rolls) at 35 Hang Thung Street at 7 pm, Tuoi Tre found no diners there. Nguyen Thi Hong, the shop’s owner, said, “My turnover has declined by about 30 percent in the past several days. Before the ban, my shop was often crowded with diners, but now only a few patrons come – on foot – since they have to park their vehicles in a place far away from here.”
Hong said she agreed with the ban on parking on roadsides or roadways but the city must set up parking lots as replacements to meet the demand for parking.
Earlier in the afternoon, Chuon Chuon Pho café, at 41 Hang Bai in Hai Ba Trung District, had no customers and idle attendants had nothing to do but to gossip.
When asked about his business situation, Nguyen Van Dat, the café’s owner, lamented, “Our shop has been poorly patronized these days and our revenue has declined sharply. Many people came and when they learned we don’t have our own parking lot, they left immediately.”
An attendant at a milk shop nearby also said, “Since the parking lot was banned here, I have to park my motorbike on another street far from here before walking to the shop. Our shop has a lot of patrons, but many of them have not come after the ban.”
At 11 am, Tuoi Tre visited a fashion shop, Ivy, at 35 Ba Trieu Street, Hoan Kiem District, and found no shoppers there, although the shop was offering 50 percent off prices to customers. A staff member at the shop said they had leased a part of an alley nearby for customers to park, but the number of shoppers had still reduced remarkably.
Similarly, another fashion shop, PT 2000, at 41 Hang Bai, had used one of its compartments as parking in an attempt to retain customers.
Some traders told Tuoi Tre that they would calculate their revenue of the first week after the ban to have an exact measure of the decline and would take measures to cope with it.
Do Xuan Thuy, director of Dong Xuan Joint Stock Company, said the Dong Xuan market had more than 2,000 traders and the market’s own parking lot could not meet parking needs. Meanwhile, two lots nearby have been removed, causing great inconvenience to market goers.
“For the time being, we cannot say conclusively whether traders’ sales have declined or not, but the market management would have a meeting to review the difficulties traders were facing before considering whether the market should make necessary proposals to the city authorities,“ Thuy said.