Faced with merchants’ demand that they be allowed to sell non-essential items, as large supermarkets offer, the Puerto Vallarta City Council today ordered supermarket managers to only offer essential items within their establishments.
The information was reported by Francisco Vallejo, Secretary-General of the Puerto Vallarta City Council, after a little more than fifty merchants, from the El Pitillal delegation and from the City Center, demonstrated this morning to ask that they be allowed to open their businesses, some of them with non-essential merchandise.
One of their main complaints was that they would not be allowed to sell non-essential items, such as gifts for Mother’s Day, while any type of household goods was sold in supermarkets in the city.
“We are asking to be attended to, we are merchants mainly from El Pitillal, also from Puerto Vallarta. We can no longer stand being closed, sincerely most of us are bankrupt, we are already about to close our stores and it is not worth it, it is not worth so many years of effort and work so that we go bankrupt, please we need an answer, we need you to support us.”
During the demonstration, the business owners circulated a petition, which requested the reopening of their businesses as of May 9, while they promised to comply with the sanitary measures that both the government and the WHO has suggested, such as using face masks, distributing antibacterial gel, keeping a healthy distance and avoiding crowds.
However, the response issued by the secretary-general of the City Council, Francisco Vallejo, was not what they expected since the municipal government said that the decrees issued by the federal government should be followed and that the most they could do was ask the supermarkets to close departments with non-essential items.
“I don’t want them to sell electrical appliances, clothes, shoes, furniture, anything, pots, or shorts, only the pharmacy and food should be sold, nothing more and at once,” said Vallejo.
