Small town drama

So there is a real drama going on in Grahamstown at the moment. I might get this a bit wrong, because it's all a bit complex. But let me try let you in on our small town drama of the hour.

So in Grahamstown we have three grocery chain stores. I think. Shoprite is on the other side of town from campus, so I don't go there much. Then in the more city centre area there is Checkers. And a block removed from that, there is Pick 'n Pay. Pick 'n Pay is in its own little mall, call Peppergrove.

Just down from Peppergrove is the BP garage, which has its own 24 hour Kwikspar. From campus it is about a 10 minute walk to Pick 'n Pay and maybe another 5 minutes to BP/Kwikspar.

So during the day students walk to Pick 'n Pay. By night they walk the extra five minutes to BP. There is a lot of night time traffic to BP - I know because I live in the area and it is *noisy* sometimes.

Ok, so here is where the drama starts. Lets call the two men involved in the drama Mr A and Mr B. The man who owns Peppergrove mall, the land Pick 'n Pay is on, is Mr A. Mr A also runs Kwikspar. The man who runs Pick 'n Pay is Mr B. Mr B also owns the houses next to BP/Kwikspar.

Now Mr A wants to expand Kwikspar. So he wants to buy the houses Mr B ownes. Mr A doesn't want any more competition, no no. So Mr A refuses to sell the houses to Mr B. Now of course, Mr B is ticked off. And Mr B is Mr A's landlord for the Pick 'n Pay building. Mr A and Mr B have a lease agreement for the Pick 'n Pay shop, so Mr B can't do anyting about that. So Mr B buys the land on the *other* side of the Peppergrove mall. And starts building a new mall, so he can put a new Superspar in the new mall. Which will be slightly closer to campus.

Part of Mr B's plan was to use some of the land from the local cinema, to have enough place to put up the new Superspar in the "new" mall, which is a wall away from the present mall. The cinema were behind on their rent to Mr B, so Mr B was going to cancel the lease with the cinema and demolish part of it for the new mall. Shame for the cinema, but they are just empty so often, I don't think they make enough money to justify having three cines. Anyway, so Mr A gets smart and approaches the owner of the Cinema. He buys shares in the cinema to keep it going and enable it to make rent payments. So Mr B can't kick them out and use the land for Superspar.

Yup, thats it. Or something like that. It is all a bit confusing. There is a Dispatch article about it here.

What a drama, hey!

The Pick 'n Pay recently extended their opening hours to 6:30 am to 10 pm. Thinking about it now, they are abviously trying to steal the 24 hour Kwikspar's early morning and night time customers!

We, the people of Grahamstown, watch with interest!