Xtra House: to open or not to open
When authorities discovered shelves stocked with expired goods and a serious rodent problem at Xtra House last week, the Public Health Bureau promptly shut down the popular supermarket. Eager to get back in business, today, the store’s owners, flanked by self-proclaimed faithful customers protested the decision to delay the store’s re-opening until later this week. News 5’s Ann Marie Williams was on Cemetery Road this morning.
Ann-Marie Williams, Reporting
A group of rebel-rousers claiming to be Xtra House customers staged a protest in front of the store this morning, calling on the authorities to open Xtra House.
Joel Bishop, Protestors
“It’s not all the items in there that are expired. Right?”
That is why Public Health Bureau first closed the store on Tuesday, then on Thursday for the management to clear the supermarket shelves of the loads of expired food stuffs. They were also told to exterminate the rodents that harbour around the food items being sold, before getting the go ahead to serve the public.
Jack Charles, one of the managers, told News 5 that he cannot understand why the health authorities are prohibiting him from opening up today, especially since they cleared the expired items last week.
Charles says he lost peak weekend sales, but when asked just how much money he lost, he replied…
Jack Charles, manager, Xtra House
“The money doesn’t matter here, my customers really matter to me.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“But if money doesn’t matter…you don’t give away the stuff free, money has to matter, you have workers to pay.”
Jack Charles
“Exactly, but this thing is, my prices…what I’m doing is basically I’m working for Belize. If you see my prices, I’m really low and that is the main reason why my competitors cannot stand in front of me and they are doing all those kinds of trickiness.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“So you’re not saying home much money more or less you’ve lost?”
Jack Charles
“That’s for management to tell you.”
Vernon Cuthkelvin, Protestor
“This place does something for the community, whereby poor people can come and shop.”
Ann-Marie Williams
“Do you know that Brodies and Romac’s, instead of pooling the expired goods along with the goods that are not expired, set it aside on a shelf so it gives you an option. Not that that’s okay, but it gives you an option for you to decide whether you’d like to buy or not.”
Vernon Cuthkelvin
“Yes, well I am aware that that happens. They closed Xtra House because they have expired goods. Then, close Brodies as well.
Ann-Marie Williams
“Some of the neighbours are saying that you all actually orchestrated the people out here to come show solidarity so that you all could open up.”
Jack Charles
“No, these are my regular customers here from the last two years shopping at Xtra House. When they came one Friday, the Health Department told me that on Monday probably we’ll be opening back and so on.”
But the Public Health Bureau isn’t taking any chances…the shutters were still down today. Police also brought out reinforcements to make sure the protestors didn’t get disorderly.
But while the demonstrators were up in arms about the closing of the establishment, neighbours felt differently. Angela Francis has lived in front of the store for over four years.
Angela Francis, Neighbour
“Rats piss up on the goods them. They have the Dano milk, rats bore the bags for it and in the morning, they have people weighing them in pounds. I think those things are out of order. They shouldn’t sell nobody that, because enough people get sick off things from Xtra House.”
Ann-Marie Williams for News 5.
The protesting seems to have paid off. This afternoon Xtra House was allowed to open its doors. According to Senior Public Health Inspector Gerald Williams, the supermarket satisfied ninety percent of the unsatisfactory conditions such as the necessary pest extermination and the fixing of toilets and of course getting rid of the old products. Williams says Xtra House will be monitored on a regular basis.
