Owned by you, right by you?
If you want some Ukrainian wine or a decent pastel de nata you’ ve got till November 26, because that’ s when the caring, sharing Co-op is closing down Seven Cellars and Latina. Gilly Smith spoke to Louise Oliver of Seven Cellars
On the Co-op’ s website under the“ Ethics” banner, there’ s a Sustainability Report that says:“ Co-operative values and principles are as relevant today as they were when we were founded in 1844 and they’ re at the heart of our approach to addressing the challenges that our Co-op and society as a whole face today”.
It’ s three years since Seven Cellars, the independent wine, beer, and spirits shop on the Seven Dials roundabout, and its neighbour, the Portuguese delicatessen, Latina, began their fight against the threat of closure from their landlords, The Co-op. But finally, in the middle of last month’ s heatwave, they were given their marching orders. By the end of November, both shops whose building facades date back to 1841, will be closed and replaced by another supermarket.
“ To be honest with you, I did shed a tear,” says Louise Oliver of Seven Cellars who with Delia Perea, of Latina has mounted a campaign that has brought out the best of the community. With support from former MP Caroline Lucas, coverage by the BBC, the Argus, Brighton Beer blog, and of course, the mighty Whistler, 10,000 signatories on the petition showed which kind of shopkeeper the locals prefer.
The Co-op, which bought the overarching lease of both small businesses three years ago, already has two supermarkets in the village.“ Usually, small businesses are able to just renew their leases, and it’ s a really simple procedure, but not so with the Co-op. They made it known they would block any attempt at renewal,” says Louise. Several protests and boycotts were staged at the larger of the two on Dyke Road, but made no difference.“ They adopted this tight-lipped non-disclosure policy where they refused to discuss anything with me at all, so I haven’ t been able to make any plans,” says Louise.“ Neither has Delia. They really have been cowards.”
It’ s no real surprise. The Co-op was recently found guilty of 107 instances of similarly anticompetitive behaviour.“ This is not something that should be ignored” says Louise.“ This is a pattern and a method and a mode of operation. It’ s not a one off, and it shows they don’ t care about us or about communities or about fairness.”
After ten years in the shop, she hasn’ t given in easily, and has armed herself with the legals.“ There are only two reasons why you can be asked to leave a premises which is protected under the 1954 Act”, she tells me.“ One is non-payment of rent. Well, that hasn’ t happened. And the other is redevelopment. Now the Co-op are supposed to show us plans. They supposed to have plans in place to ask us to leave. However, we have asked to see those plans. And of course, they are refusing to discuss or show us any plans at all. I’ ve looked on the Council portal, and there is no submission of any plans at all.”
But while we can boo the bad guys, Louise has been overwhelmed by the kindness of the community response.“ It was amazing. We just had so many incredible offers of support from artists and graphic designers offering to make posters for us. We had a local picture framer donate backboards in case we wanted to make banners and pictures so we could demonstrate. It has been incredible.”
“ I think people understand the value of an independent business”, she says.“ We’ re with people throughout their high days, their holidays. We’ re with people in the sad times, and we’ re with people when they’ re celebrating brilliant things. We get to know them, and some people become friends. And you can’ t say that about a supermarket, you know. In a big multinational supermarket, that doesn’ t happen.”
There’ s usually much more to a local indie than meets the eye;“ Let’ s face it”, Louise laughs,“ nobody really needs a wine shop, right? It’ s probably one of the most frivolous shops you could have. But we are doing something different. It’ s a place where you can come and learn stuff. We have wine tastings which brings people together. And it’ s more than that too. We connect other food and drink businesses in the local area, just small local kitchen table businesses. For example, there was a little chocolate maker here, and we were their first ever outlet.
Unbarred Brewery, we were there when they gave us their first invoice. Now look at what they’ ve