Post date: Apr 16, 2012 2:33:44 PM
Gift and homeware shop advertises its closing-down sale due to 'desperation' with a sign thanking everyone and everything that contributed to make Cesar Calle's 15 year-old family business unsustainable in crisis-hit Spain.
MADRID, SPAIN (RECENT) (REUTERS) - Cesar Calle, 53, will soon join the thousands of retailers that have had to close-down as their businesses in crisis hit Spain are no longer viable.
Cesar however has chosen a very public and novel way to advertise his closing down sale - a 2 x 6 metre sign reading 'SALE DUE TO DESPERATION' which also includes a thank you list. "Thank you to the Spanish government, thank you to political privileges, thank you to the unions for doing nothing, thank you for injecting public money into banks, thank you to big business, thank you for forgetting small businesses and retailers, thank you Greece for showing us how our future will be, thank you for forcing our children to emigrate," the sign reads.
"My grandparents, may they rest in peace, used to say, being thankful is being well brought-up, so I have tried to be thankful, with a touch of irony, so my sign thanks everyone who has helped and is helping us close-down," Cesar, who opened the Te and Limon gift and homeware shop with his wife 15 years ago says.
"Three years ago the 'catastrophe', this famous crisis, arrived leading us little by little to the current state, and that has just about finished knocking us down," he adds.
Statistics from the Association of Independent Workers (ATA) say 4771 businesses have closed down so far this year. In February, sales amongst retailers fell for the 20th consecutive month.
As costs and taxes go up, Cesar says the business is becoming progressively more untenable..
"To sum it up, we sell less, we have more outgoings, it's unsustainable - we can´t keep up, it's unsustainable... no, no," Cesar says.
Although Te and Limon is not bankrupt, Cesar says he wants to close down properly, paying off two attendants and his two sons who along with him and his wife who also make a living from the shop.
Ironically, the shop-owner says the sign seems to be helping him do just that.
Ever since the sign went up people have come to shop and express their support.
For Cesar it's a clear sign society cares and an indication Spain will overcome the crisis if everyone works together.
"Since we put the sign up many people have shown their support, their warmth. They come to shop ...I am totally overwhelmed and thankful, but overwhelmed. The support I am getting was unthinkable and it means I'm not an isolated case, there's a society that responds," he says.
Shoppers like Pilar who has lived in the neighbourhood for years says Te and Limon's eventual closure is a shame, but adds that shoppers are definitely taking advantage of the bargains.
"It's a shame, evidently we are all taking advantage, but there is no doubt it's a shame they are closing down," she says.
"The way things are now, of course you show support, I'm also looking for work, things aren't easy," says Jessica Benitez, who is one of the almost five million jobless people in Spain, the country with the highest unemployment rate in Europe.
Cesar hopes that a buyer will turn up to buy the shop. So far though, he has had no luck.
One of his daughters has already moved to the Netherlands where job prospects are better.
His son David, who recently became a father is hoping he can find work as a physical education teacher once the shop closes. If he doesn't he says, he may have to follow his sister's footsteps.
"If I have no other option my decision will be much like my sister's - try to make a living abroad, wherever it's easier," David says.
Struggling businesses and young people having to look for work abroad is becoming an ever more common story in Spain as the government applies deep austerity measures to combat its deficit and appease the markets.
The Calle family, in a sense, represents the experience of many families and small business in the crisis hit country.