Retailers in an historic shopping arcade have been left severly out of pocket after the building was closed for safety reasons.
Around a dozen Auckland businesses were told to shut up shop just days before Christmas, and say they're desperate to reopen.
The Strand on Queen St is one of the oldest arcades in Auckland; people have been shopping there for more than a century - but not this Christmas holiday.
"The [Auckland] Council turned up here and just handed out a notice to everybody saying 'you've got to be gone by the end of the day'," says retailers spokesman, Kieran Bird.
"They cleared all their stock out, big panic, and since then we've all been battling to find out what's been going on."
Retailers have been told one issue is that electricity was accidentally cut to the sprinkler system during refurbishment work.
"It looks like it'll be Monday or Tuesday now before it opens - I mean, talk about the Grinch who stole Christmas," says Mr Bird, whose partner owns a hair salon in the arcade.
The Strand Arcade, which runs between Queen St and Elliott St in Auckland CBD, has been a place for commercial transactions for over 100 years.
But on December 20, retailers were given a Dangerous Building Notice forcing them to get out, meaning they missed out on crucial Christmas trading.
The council notice says alterations and a lack of maintenance have left the building in a dangerous state, and in the event of a fire, injury or death is likely.
Anxious business owners say the closure has already cost them tens of thousands of dollars.
"We've been told we should be open by now - apparently the building is now safe, and the council are saying sorry but the senior person who can reopen isn't available until Monday," says Mr Bird.
Retailers only hope they can get back in time for the January sales.
Steve Pearce, manager regulatory compliance for the Auckland Council, issued a response: Ensuring the health and safety of our community is always our number one priority when making any decisions about whether to close or partially close public-access buildings. In the case of 233 Queen Street, we could not guarantee the public safety, or the safety of retailers and other workers in the arcade which is why we were forced to take steps to close the building on 20 December. It is only when we consider there is a serious danger to life and property would we take this action.
"As well as a number of retail outlets, the arcade is also home to a backpackers hostel and a business in the basement all of which have had building compliance issues in the past and the business in the basement voluntarily closed in June 2016 to reduce the risk for the entire building, a Dangerous Building Notice was in place for a year to ensure the entire property was safe, which included work on the fire warning and separation systems. That was lifted in June 2017 once inspectors were satisfied with these remedial works.
"Since this time, building warrant of fitness works have not been completed as required by the Building Act and that prompted Council to re-inspect the building in early December. At this stage, inspectors discovered more serious compliance issues and raised their concerns with our compliance team who inspected the building and discovered several severe public safety risks. Due to demolition works in the basement, the sprinkler system had been disconnected, compromising the entire centre and fire exits to the street had been blocked.
"We asked both the Fire Brigade and Holmes Fire Consultants to conduct a further inspection of the building and based on their advice, we were forced to issue the owners with a Dangerous Building Notice effective from Thursday 20 December. We have been working with the owners since then to assist with solutions which would enable the building to reopen this has included a number of options for partial reopening which we have been able to achieve today. The retail area and the living space of the backpackers is now open but all other areas will remain closed until we have certainty that the public is safe. Part of the agreement to reopen these areas was the employment of security staff to restrict access to parts of the building which remain closed."
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