Guernsey Weigh to call it a day at end of November

The shop, a focus of the Inner Street in the Market Buildings, will close its pasta dispensers and screw a lid on a refillable spice jar for a final time at the end of November.

It has been catering to environmentally-conscious islanders since 2019.

Main proprietor Alison Vine said she had taken the decision with a heavy heart after falling sales, and claimed that the States could have done more to support the sustainable approach.

‘Pre-Covid trade was fabulous,’ she said. ‘But the pandemic seems to have changed the way people shop, they just don’t come to Town as much.

‘We have very loyal customers and many are very upset. We have had a few in tears. It’s a different style of shopping, it’s very personal.’

The shop allowed customers to refill containers of a diverse range of goods from herbs to washing up liquid, meaning that no single-use plastic packaging was involved.

‘This is my baby, it’s a very sad day for me, as the owner and a shopper,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to go back to shopping plastic, but there is no alternative.

‘We must have saved half a million pieces of plastic from going into landfill since we opened.’

She added that she was bitterly disappointed that the States had not brought in any ban on single-use plastics, similar to moves being made law in the UK.

‘The government here are not helping shoppers to shop the zero-waste way. Recycling is not the answer.’

She also mentioned the frequent closure of the Albert Pier, the nearest car park, to allow cruise liner passengers to land, as another factor in her decision.

‘Cruise passengers are not our typical customers, and there is a palpable difference in footfall on those days.

‘Add impending GST and it would have just been another administrative expense that we couldn’t bear.’

Mrs Vine, who retired from the finance industry two years ago and is also on the board of the Citizens Advice charity, said that she still had enough customers to show that this style of shopping could work in Guernsey.

Sonia Taylor, a director of Bailiwick Estates, said that the Guernsey Weigh had been a great asset to the building.

‘I wish we could do something to reverse the trend in declining footfall,’ she said. ‘Islanders have also been hoodwinked into thinking recycling is free, it’s not. Our message has always been don’t take plastic home in the first place. All that packaging costs the island a great deal to get rid of.’

The shop will close on 25 November. Mrs Vine said that anyone interested in buying the fittings, including its gravity dispensers, should contact her directly.