Palma town hall wants to try and ensure the continuance of traditional establishments in the city. These include cafés, bakers, hardware stores and haberdashers. At present there are some fifty establishments included in a catalogue. A measure for saving them - the best solution apparently - is to promote them in brochure that will be available to tourists and to residents.
The town hall hopes to therefore be able to, for example, inform visitors about places which sell the most authentic products that are representative of Palma and Majorca.
It may be that more establishments are added to this catalogue or it could be that some are removed if they don't meet requirements for inclusion. A criterion is that a shop or café must be at least 75 years old. The personality and character of establishments are being assessed, and this means, in the case of bakers, that they must have their own ovens. The town hall will exclude places which only sell "industrial products".
Among these shops is the Forn Fondo bakers on the calle Unió. It was founded in 1911. Another is the haberdashery shop Ca donya Àngela on calle Jaume II. It has been run by the same family since 1685.
Concern has been expressed by the recent loss of traditional establishments in the city. There are different factors to explain why this has been happening. One is that rents have been pushed up, and there is no doubting the fact that in some instances these traditional premises are in prime locations.
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The Palma council's idea producing a brochure for tourists is stupid. Those lovely old shops will disappear anyway, just like the old corner shops in the UK did. Look how UK's high streets have very few independent shops nowadays. They cannot compete on price. And how many tourists in Palma will go to the hat, or umbrella shop, or the haberdashery shop for a roll of material?? The world unfortunately for some shops has moved on. Answer is simple. Reduce their rates in the form of a preservation subsidy to give them some hope.
Unfortunately we will loose them all. As long as Councils continue to allow out of town shopping centres, like the new FAN. They draw shoppers out of the City/town centres causing them to decay. Very sad.
It’s about time that the Mallorcangovernment Government should take notice of All the local long established businesses and these should be cherished as National Treasures. This year 2017 lots of historical family businesses have closed their shops in Palma it’s so sad that these historic family businesses have disappeared throughout the island. Many tourists as well as Mallorquicans miss these establishments. Once gone they don’t return!
To have the same shop in a family for well over three hundred years is something to be really proud of and it must be one of the few shops anywhere in the world that can make such a claim,long may it stay in the ownership of this family.