PHOTO: Business owners want the Government to step in and help. Photo credit: Getty
A Queenstown tourism owner says many small business owners in the town won’t be sleeping well as they grapple with how to pay their commercial rent.
Matt Price, who has owned the Black Sheep Backpackers in Queenstown for the past 12 years, says the government must step in and help business owners out.
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“Landlords and tenants need help, we’ve been waiting a long time. We’re four weeks into this. Are people sleeping well at night? A lot of small business owners won’t be sleeping well at night. We need that help and we need it now.”
Like many business owners, while Price owns his business, he leases the building from a landlord.
Up until lockdown “we were cranking as normal as anyone would expect in peak season”, he said.
“As soon as we rolled into March over the space of about of a week we rolled down to 75 percent and then 50 percent and all of a sudden zero percent and the doors have closed, that’s it.”
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