The fi­nan­cial health of the pop­u­lar “Dou­bles Strip” along S.S. Erin Road in Debe is look­ing grim fol­low­ing a 60 per cent drop in sales due to the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic. At least sev­en work­ers have been laid off as busi­ness­es strug­gle to stay afloat.

Work­ers de­scribed the usu­al­ly bustling area as a ghost town.

“We are open to­day, we were closed yes­ter­day be­cause of the Prime Min­is­ter views about the coro­n­avirus. We de­cide to open to try to see if we could sell be­cause this is our on­ly means of in­come and we have plen­ty bills to pay,” said San­dra Ram­rat­tan, of Kr­ish­na’s Food Cen­tre. Due to slow sales, she laid off three work­ers.

“We may have to close again be­cause it re­al­ly hard. It re­al scary. You still see cars and thing now a lil lat­er by 3, 4 o clock the place get silent. Debe like a ghost town.”

She said over the week­end they threw away plen­ty of un­sold food. Sharon Has­sanali, own­er of Has­sanali’s Green Shed al­so com­plained, “Nor­mal­ly around this time this road jam pack. It like a ghost town now. It very qui­et. Since week­end you feel­ing like a dull­ness in the air.” She is try­ing to avoid hav­ing to send home any of her work­ers.

“Nor­mal­ly the work­ers work a whole day shift. If it comes to that we will try to split it in a two-shift. Re­mem­ber this is their bread and but­ter. If we have to close by chance I don’t know what will hap­pen.”

Head chef Sa­lome Manoo of Ho­sein’s Del­i­ca­cies said so far they have not en­coun­tered any sick work­ers or cus­tomers.

“We know it get­ting worse. and they talk­ing about shut­ting down the coun­try. We hop­ing and pray­ing that does not hap­pen.” She said they al­so had to send home a few work­ers.

The bars were closed in keep­ing with the di­rec­tive of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that those es­tab­lish­ments re­main closed for two weeks.

Bar­ber Key­on Nehru, the own­er of Key­on’s Cut­ting Edge Bar­ber Sa­loon, at Vic­to­ria Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, is al­so feel­ing the fi­nan­cial crunch and has made some ad­just­ments to safe­guard him­self and his cus­tomers. He is no longer do­ing fa­cial shav­ings and has sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duced his ap­point­ments per day.

“I have al­so put up signs that any­one with flu-like symp­toms will not be able to get any hair cuts.” He is al­so wear­ing his masks while at­tend­ing to cus­tomers, wash­ing his hands reg­u­lar­ly and san­i­tiz­ing and clean­ing his equip­ment and fur­ni­ture.

“Usu­al­ly in here have about 10 or 12 peo­ple, now I’m on­ly see­ing three peo­ple a day.” For now, he is mon­i­tor­ing the sit­u­a­tion, but if it wors­ens he will have to con­sid­er clos­ing his busi­ness.