SINGAPORE – Impartial bookshop The Moon is closing its brick-and-mortar retailer in Chinatown on the finish of the month, because the Covid-19 pandemic continues to trigger churn within the books scene right here.
Proprietor Sarah Naeem, 31, mentioned this was resulting from excessive rental prices. As her landlord was intending to extend the lease, she mentioned, she determined to not renew the lease after it’s up in February and to reduce as an alternative to a pop-up and on-line mannequin.
Regardless of authorities support such because the Jobs Help Scheme, she mentioned that the fixed fluctuation in pandemic laws made it exhausting to maintain the enterprise going.
“I really feel like 2020 was nonetheless manageable, however 2021 was notably difficult as a result of the second a brand new regulation would come into place, clients would lose steam, the workers would lose steam, I might lose steam.
“It simply did not appear possible to maintain going at this charge.”
The Moon opened at 37 Mosque Road in September 2018 as a bookstore, cafe and occasion house on the primary and third flooring of a shophouse.
Its final day will probably be on Jan 31. The previous weekend, it can maintain a “informal closing get together” with occasions comparable to journalling periods and guide golf equipment.
At current, the shop has 14 workers, however by the tip of the month, it can have 4 full-time and two part-time workers. The remainder will probably be let go.
“It undoubtedly wasn’t a simple choice to make,” mentioned Ms Naeem. “Everyone cried so much. I cried so much once I needed to allow them to know.”
The previous yr has been fraught for Singapore’s books scene. Impartial bookstore BooksActually shut its Tiong Bahru brick-and-mortar store in September 2020 to maneuver on-line. A yr later, it got here beneath fireplace resulting from a Rice Media expose on proprietor Kenny Leck’s alleged relationships with younger feminine workers.
Huggs-Epigram Espresso Bookshop, based by writer Epigram Books and occasional chain Huggs in 2019, needed to shut briefly in August final yr on the City Redevelopment Authority Centre resulting from struggles with lease, although it reopens this Thursday (Jan 6). Within the interim, Epigram ran a pop-up bookshop for 5 months in Seaside Street.
It has not all been dangerous information, nevertheless. In September final yr, new Chinese language-language bookstore Sea Breeze Books opened in Tanjong Katong Street.
Ms Naeem mentioned she hopes The Moon can return as a brick-and-mortar retailer sometime. “However that is simply not the most effective time for a bodily bookstore.”