Heartbreak Boutique (Image: Elizabeth MacLeod)
Uptown apparel and accessories store Heartbreak Boutique on Germain Street is making the appropriate preparations and precautions to reopen as New Brunswick enters its ‘orange’ recovery phase
“I’m still trying to work it out exactly what I’m going to do,” said owner Pamela Wheaton. “Based on my calculations I can have four people in the store, but then I wouldn’t be able to give people the attention that I think I want to be able to do right now,” she explains.
Wheaton is looking at opening the store, by appointment only, at a reduced capacity with proper social-distancing guidelines.
Along with arrows on the floor, implementing appropriate distancing, wiping down counters and providing hand sanitizer, Wheaton will handle the merchandise instead of people touching the clothes and items on the racks. They can still try them on, but she will take the time to steam-clean them between each customer.
Heartbreak Boutique (Image: Elizabeth MacLeod)
“It makes more sense for people to be able to try the clothes on here rather than be taken home,” Wheaton said. “At least here I can sort of control the situation.”
She hopes Heartbreak Boutique can open in the next week to two weeks, in order to be completely ready for shoppers coming to the store.
“There’s no sector specific details or guidelines for clothing so I have been reading up on a few different things,” she said. “The sense I’m getting is that nobody wants to do something incorrectly, not knowing that they’re doing it incorrectly; we all want to do everything properly, but there’s some pieces of the puzzle that we’re just not 100% sure on so that makes it makes everybody a little bit nervous.”
Heartbreak Boutique’s online shop has done good business throughout the quarantine, but Wheaton is excited for the store to reopen.
“I miss the customer interaction so much, it’s weird it’s one of those things that you don’t realize that you miss it until it’s gone,” she said.
This story was originally published on Huddle.Today – an Acadia Broadcasting Limited content partner.
