A Duckworth Street business owner says city council has not given business owners enough time to provide input on plans for a pedestrian mall this summer.
Elizabeth Mysyk owns The Sprout restaurant on Duckworth Street. She’s one of a number of area business owners who have launched a petition and email campaign asking St. John’s Council to consider expanding the successful Pedestrian Mall introduced on Water Street last summer.
The Duckworth Street business believes it’s unfair to limit the concept to Water Street.
Other businesses on Duckworth recently posted on Facebook that they were financially devastated by being near the mall but excluded from it. They report not seeing the spillover that city council said would occur. Instead, people parked on Duckworth street just to walk over to Water Street.
The deadline for feedback on what the Downtown Pedestrian Mall should look like was noon today.
Mysyk feels the entire process is being rushed, and that 15 days is not enough time for feedback on an event that will last the whole summer and have repercussions for the whole year.
Councillors said that last year was a pilot project to see if this would work and she says businesses have been telling them it didn’t work.
Elizabeth Mysyk spoke on the VOCM Morning Show. Listen below:
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