Central Maitland was a ghost town yesterday, aside from a handful of businesses that opened their doors for the public holiday.
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Subway fast food restaurant was the only business open of the 62 shopfronts in the mall between Bourke and Elgin streets.
Lavenders Riverside Café was one of the five businesses open near the mall.
Co-owner Errol Russell said that business owners were missing an opportunity to make money by not opening on Sundays or public holidays.
But he said that penalty rates for staff wages, which are required by law, was the key factor as to whether businesses opened their doors on public holidays.
“People still want to go out on their public holiday, have a day out and enjoy either breakfast or lunch,” Mr Russell said.
“But because of the extra wages you have to pay on a public holiday, you’ve got to make it worth your while. The majority of the time we do alright out of it.
“I have no doubt that it’s a concern for most businesses.”
Movie Heaven owner John Lee said opening on a public holiday was not risky for him because he could get work done converting home movies in his workshop at the back of the
premises if customer numbers were low.
He said he could not afford to pay penalty rates for staff to work on a public holiday.
“It’s a two-way situation. Unless you’ve got high turnover, you can’t afford to pay the penalty rates,” Mr Lee said.
“It’s a very tricky situation.”
The state government reported last week that retail spending was up 8.5 per cent state-wide compared with the same time last year.
However the increasing shopfront vacancy rate in the mall suggests Maitland is not contributing to this improved statistic.
Fifteen of the 62 mall shopfronts were empty as of yesterday.
This is up from 10 empty premises in May, before work on the mall began.
Mr Lee said he believed that there was more chance of mall businesses opening on public holidays after Maitland City Council’s multi-million dollar revamp was complete.
But he said he did not believe council understood the urgency of the situation that many retailers faced.
“There are people hanging on by the skin of their teeth at the moment,” Mr Lee said.
