Harassment of Covent Garden Fishmongers by neighbouring business
As a customer of Phil Diamond and now his son Gary, for the last forty years I was concerned to receive this email from him about complaints apparently made by neighbouring Philip Neal:'Due to complaints made by the proprietor of the chocolate shop to Hounslow council regarding you our lovely loyal customers, its been brought to my attention from the council that you are blocking the entrance and the window of his shop and not adhering to social distancing!? I have also been made aware that he has been incredibly rude, aggressive and disrespectful to both my female staff and you my customers. I would therefore like to express my deepest apology on his behalf for his rudeness and disrespect and to avoid any further unpleasantness from him and potential fines from the council, I would kindly ask you to queue in the road, that’s separated with barriers from the traffic and then to cut back across the pavement when you get level with our shop. As the proprietor of the chocolate shop doesn’t even want you to stand under his awning when its raining, I have arranged to provide you all with umbrellas to keep you nice and dry. The umbrellas will be sanitised before and after use, hand sanitizing gel is available for use and if the umbrellas are not being handed out please come to the door and help yourself to one. Thank you.'Several points occur to me:1. Covent Garden Fishmongers and Mackens have both performed an invaluable service to the community throughout lockdown. Their ordering and delivery arrangements have been impeccable and I for one am extremely grateful as I’m sure are all the other elderly, shielding and vulnerable customers who have benefited from their service.2. My casual observation of queueing in the Terrace is that there is no difference in behaviour or format of those queuing for Mackens and Covent Garden Fishmongers. Both appear to be well behaved and socially distant.3. The pavement is a public right of way and retailers have no specific rights over the area outside their premises. Surely Philip Neal cannot prevent anyone standing outside his shop and under ‘his’ awning? He presumably is not classified as ‘essential retail’ and so isn’t opening his doors anyway.Given all this, why is the Council allegedly intervening to threaten Covent Garden Fishmongers with a fine? If indeed they are.I would like to urge you to use this website to generate community support for a longstanding and invaluable Chiswick institution. We are lucky to have an excellent, functioning fishmonger in the neighbourhood.
Gill Golding ● 2095d19 Comments