All commercial kiosks to disappear in Minsk before December 10
- 20.11.2008, 8:23
It was a decision of Minsk city executive committee. Instead of them city authorities offer Minsk dwellers to buy cigarettes in kiosks of Belsayuzdruk.
By the end of winter Minsk city executive committee plans to remove all kiosks. Now they are actively removed in Kastrychnitsky district of Minsk. Kiosks have placed the decrees of administration to be removed before December 10 on their widows.
“Kiosks will be replaced by sheds. There will be no kiosks in the city at all except newspaper kiosks Belsayuzdruk,” the European Radio for Belarus was told by trade and services department of the Administration of Kastrychnitski district.
Everybody knows about the range of products sold in Belsayuzdruk kiosks.
“We sell cigarettes too,” Sofya Tsyareshka, the head of trade department of Belsayuzdruk told. “Cigarettes made at Hrodna tobacco processing plant, and we receive them. We do not sell chocolate always, only in the period when temperature allows that. And we do not sell beer and do not plan to do that”.
Reports from the Internet that Minsk city executive committee plans to construct lots of little shops “within reach of one's hand” before 2015 are still rumors.
“What? Are we replacing anything by anything?” Larysa Kamarova, the head of the trade and services department of Minsk city executive committee is resentful. “To replace kiosks by shops? Get a life! It’s nonsense. Nobody is going to replace 500 kiosks by 500 little shops”.
Meanwhile businessmen state that knocking down kiosks is illegal, as the decision about that had been adopted without permission of the Justice Ministry.
“All kiosks are removed by the decision of Minsk city executive committee. It doesn’t have a legal character, but a organizational/management character,” Anatol Shumchanka, the chairman of the businessmen association “Perspektiva” says. “These decisions haven’t undergone legal expertise in the Justice Ministry. We were told by the Justice Ministry that such a decisions hadn’t been received by them, though they were to check it, as it concerns millions of people and millions dollars lost by entrepreneurs”.
A businessman from Kastrychnitsky district of Minsk Uladzimir does not know what to do with the kiosk after dismantling it, and what he would do after that. In fact, the decision of Minsk city executive committee leaves him unemployed.
“The decision to remove kiosks hasn’t been even shown to anyone, just a meeting was organized,” the businessman told sadly. “The cost of a kiosk is from USD 7,000 to USD 10,000. But we do not know now what to do with the kiosk, not speaking about our future profession. In the end of the last year we were ordered to change old kiosks for new ones. We were told: “Replace the kiosks by new-type kiosks, and then it is possible you would be allowed to keep them”. We have done that.”