One-night shopping in Ewarton

EWARTON, St Catherine:

The community of Ewarton in St Catherine is set to come alive on Thursday with the inaugural staging of a one-night shopping extravaganza.

Dubbed 'Shopping Night Out', the celebration will see shops, stores and restaurants in the town extending their opening hours from 6:00 p.m. to midnight.

Shoppers will be getting discounts and other special offerings. In addition to regular menus, a variety of sumptuous Jamaican dishes will be available for lovers of local food.

The occasion, said Gladstone Thomas, chairman of the Ewarton Community Development Action Committee (ECoDAC), the organisation spearheading the initiative, evolved out of efforts to revitalise the Ewarton business district.

"Shopping Night Out is a stolen idea from Fashion Night Out in Kingston. The idea came up some time ago, because WINDALCO was partly closed, so business in Ewarton was going down. So Christmas coming up, we were looking at ways to reactivate the economy of Ewarton. We were looking at ways how to get people who come from Ewarton to spend in Ewarton," Thomas explained to The Gleaner.

But business owners are not the only ones targeted to participate in Shopping Night Out.

"We also try to get people to use the Ewarton market, so we also target some of the informal commercial sellers who come from Ewarton to set up business in the market for that night," said Thomas.

The chairman hinted that ECoDAC was also moving to rekindle the spirit of Grand Market in Ewarton.

"When I was a little boy Grand Market was the top thing in Ewarton. After a while, everybody left and went to Linstead. So on December 24, we are going to have music in the market. There is the Christmas tree there, so we trying to revive Grand Market. We don't expect to compete with Linstead, but the older people, we might attract them," said a hopeful Thomas.

ECoDAC was established in 1991 under the Integrated Demand Reduction Programme, managed by the National Council on Drug Abuse, to reduce drug abuse and promote healthy lifestyle in the community.

The organisation has since expanded its operations to include education, skills training and other programmes.

- Karen Sudu