By Ella Legg
BYRON BAY, NSW: Exorbitant land tax, insurance costs, council rates and excessive local traffic has driven Retravision Byron Bay to close its doors after 38 years’ profitable trading, business owner Elton Cummings has told Current.com.au.
Cummings, whose five Retravision businesses cover large areas of northern NSW including Tweed/Gold Coast, Ballina, Lismore, Yamba and Grafton, says he’s devastated to be closing the Byron Bay store on Saturday 10 July.
“We would love to keep trading in Byron Bay.”
“The store was certainly more than profitable,” said Cummings.
Cummings added that excessive traffic and the Byron Bay store’s compact footprint (350 square metres) were other reasons for deciding to move on.
“You need a store that’s 800 square metres to 1,000 square metres to be viable in this area.”
“We would love to come back if the council would make changes to local zonings. There’s simply nowhere else for us to reopen the store.”
Cummings told Current.com.au that he has leased the Retravision Byron Bay store to a discount chemist.
“That certainly made the decision to leave a much easier one for us.”
Last week, the local SPAR supermarket closed its doors in Byron after less than a year’s trading.