Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 09, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
My wife decided that she needed to buy a dress for a wedding we had to attend last Saturday. We went to John Lewis Styles on Waterloo Street, right next to the landmark that has just closed down, the Astor Cinema. Anyone who grew up in south Georgetown in the sixties and seventies would have vast memories of the Astor Cinema. Our section was the Pit. And Pit was where fun and fight were always present.
The first time I went in the House section of the Astor was when Boyo Ramsaroop (late father of Gerhard Ramsaroop of the AFC) took me to see Franco Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet.
In 1978 when I started courting my wife, Janet, I graduated from Pit to House. Obviously, you can’t take your girlfriend into Pit. The last movie I saw at a cinema in this country was at the Astor. It was at the insistence of my daughter. She was a little girl then and my wife and I took her to see “Deep Rising”, a movie about monsters in the South China Sea that came from the ocean bed and ate up all the passengers of an expensive cruise ship.
Anyway, back to the Astor neighbour, John Lewis Styles. The last time I shopped at John Lewis Styles was when the store was located at Lamaha and Waterloo Streets. I bought an umbrella there for $2500 because I was fed up with the $500 Chinese ones that broke up on the first day after you opened it. It turned out I didn’t have much luck with my expensive umbrella.
John Lewis Styles next to the Astor Cinema is a classy joint. Mr. Lewis must be complimented for his aesthetic senses. The place brings some modern ambience to Guyana. It was raining when we drove into the compound and suddenly there appeared a young man waiting outside the passenger door to shelter my wife. I waited in the lobby while my wife shopped for her dress. I asked to see the Kaieteur News and Stabroek News while waiting but was told they didn’t have the newspapers.
Eventually my wife appeared with a handsome looking John Lewis bag in her hand. When we reached the door, the attendant asked for the bill. My wife didn’t know where it was. She looked in her shopping bag, it wasn’t there. She tried her purse but couldn’t find it. About fifteen seconds of rummaging, she found it in some little, hidden compartment of her purse. In those fifteen seconds, my patience had evaporated. One second more I was taking my wife out the store with her purchase bill or no bill.
Any reader of my columns would know that over the decades I have been doing newspaper commentaries I have bitterly resented the mistreatment of consumers. I have also angrily denounced the death of the Guyana Consumers’ Association. The worse case scenario was National Hardware owned by Mr. Eddie Boyer. Customers were stopped at the door and the guard went through all your purchases. It was an act of madness.
I complained to Mr. Boyer who promised to halt the obscenity but never did. I enjoyed exemption status because they dared not go into my bags. I have stopped buying at National Hardware after the incident when I accused Mr. Boyer of assaulting me.
I have never gone into the store since then, four years ago.
Back to John Lewis. I shop all the time and no one asks me for the bill at Fogarty’s, Guyana Stores, Austin’s Bookstore, Nigel’s Supermarket and even at the Hadfield Street store of Mr. Lewis’s sister and other well established Georgetown retailers.
What readers need to know is at John Lewis Styles all the clothes have electronic tags and the surveillance cameras remind you of Elton John’s famous song, “Lucy in the Skies with Diamonds.” So why the bill at the exit?
In a month’s time, I have to attend another wedding – Edison Jefford’s of this newspaper.
I saw a pair of denim jeans at John Lewis which I will wear at Eddo’s wedding. I do not wear formal trousers only jeans. So if Mr. Lewis is reading this either he stops me from entering or he can call the police after I buy my denim but I am not submitting any bill at the exit.
It is unmodern and an invasion of privacy. It simply does not make sense to me and can someone help me out here. Why do you have to show your personal property (the bill is yours) to a store official?
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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