ah..two businesses in A-Town shuttered/stickered with the big SAT(tax folks)seal of disapproval…Braulios #1, the scene this morning of five representatives of the newly recharged arm of government tax authority….sealed and under not one, but two padlocks…around the corner, on 3rd Calle, across from the new deli Pan y Fantasia, what was a retail shop…also ‘stickered/shut’…this does not bode well for a lot of businesses in town, a lot of whom have been coasting on the cash flow(if they had any)…another vacancy on 5th Calle, north side, between the health food store and around La Canoa…nope, can’t recall just what it was but obviously not memorable to what remains of my gray cells(all 50 of them)
an interesting conversation with a few business owners tonight..i didn’t think(typical)that a lot of the Cristianos coming here are ‘home stays’ which implies that their food is mostly included, except for a day or two a week..ergo, where do they go for chow? somewhere cheap…with the downgrading of the ‘typical’ Antigua tourist, from Christians to back packers to Spanish school types, this also doesn’t bode well for the retail scene, unless they’re doing pizza, ice cream and such…fuggedabout booze and cigarettes..and art, clothing, jewelry and fancy purses…when will this end? flip a coin…pick five or ten years, when the world’s economic giant sinkhole has been filled in…war(s)didn’t do it, the usual economic engine…ask Daddy Warbucks..the USof Aye is going schizo and the only cash left is in the hands of narco folks and Apple/Microsoft…to quote the late John Lennon, ‘most peculiar, Mama’
cocktails, anyone?
was that a owner of a certain cafe that i saw working in a retail shop tonight? probably…and that has implications but I’m not going there…the times, they ain’t getting any easier…take a look at upper 5th Avenida, for example..hell, any place on 5th…4th Calle, the Golden Gulch, is flopping around..one night they’re hot and the next night they’re s’not…
so, with the pending departure of Piano Mike and Piano Nelson, that leaves Ron Fortin, TLG aka the Mescalitos and Adan the Amazing Cuban for live music…maybe Mercedes Escobar…as I mentioned, maybe its time to dust off the jukeboxes of yesteryear, set ‘em for taking 25 centavo coins and laissez les bon temps roulez…sorry ’bout that…or pardon my ‘french’..
