With the opening of the remaining retail stores and services, Greece proceeds with the second stage of lockdown easing on Monday, May 11, 2020. Stores selling shoes, clothes, home appliances and cosmetics are among those to open again.
Retail stores reopening on Monday, May 11, include those selling the following goods or services:
– Sound and image equipment
– Textile products
– Ironworks, house paint, glass
– Rugs, kilims, wall and floor covering
– Home electrical appliances
– Furniture, lighting fixtures and other home furnishings
– Music and visual recordings
– Toys
– Clothing
– Shoes, leather goods
– Cosmetics, personal grooming goods
– Watches, jewellery
– New and used goods
Also shops renting sports and leisure equipment, videotapes and LPs, personal or home equipment, diet services, betting stores (OPAP), driving schools.
All shops within shops, retail businesses with outdoor stands.
All stores will open at 10:00 a.m., except for those selling house paints and other industrial goods, that may open at 7:00 a.m.
Closed remain shopping malls and department stores that will open again at a later time.
Health authorities strongly recommend the use of protective masks for staff and customers alike, and keeping a distance of 1.5 m among people.
Customers are encouraged not to use elevators. If they must use them, an elevator has to be less than half full (40%). The use of mask is mandatory in an elevator.
Betting stores are not allowed to seat their customers and the use of a mask by both customers and staff is strongly recommended.
Driving school customers may visit only after appointments, both customers and staff must wear masks.
According to Deputy Development and Investment Minister Nikos Papathanassis, the reopening of these businesses means that 155,962 staff members (or 22.5% of all employees whose jobs were suspended by coronavirus-prevention measures) will return to work.
A total of 66,100 businesses (25% of those whose operation was suspended) will reopen on May 11.
Between May 4 (the first wave of stores and service reopening) and May 11, a total of 225,000 employees will have returned to work (33% of totally suspended positions) and 93,000 businesses reopened (35% of all suspended ones).
Between May 4 (the first wave of reopenings) and May 11, Papathanassis said, a total of 225,000 employees will have returned to work (33 pct of totally suspended positions) and 93,000 businesses reopened (35 pct of all suspended ones).
With exception of food stores, bakeries, pharmacies and other essential shops, stores were shut down on March 16 by government order. Lockdown restrictions on the free movement were imposed on March 23 and were partially lifted on May 4.
