In the hospitality industry the show must go on — and although much of it happens in the dark anyway, brothel and strip-club owners say power failures in Johannesburg have meant a downturn in business.
‘No electricity means no telephones ring, which means there are no customers,” says Sandy, a receptionist at Nefertitis in Johannesburg (‘Where gentlemen reign supreme”). ‘There is no other way to make appointments but over the telephone. People don’t even call when there are power failures. It’s affecting us very badly.”
She says most customers just walk out. ‘What’s the point? In our business this is very, very bad and we need our telephone lines to get clients.”
Teazers in Rivonia is one of many in the strip-club franchise that has been hit by load-shedding. Chief executive Lolly Jackson says that even with generators installed in many of the clubs, customers still complain — even though the lights go off only for a minute at most.
‘I have spent more than R400 000 on sound equipment. Every time Eskom load-sheds there is a power surge, which blows up the sound equipment. I have eight spare amps in my office in case,” he says.
‘Drinks and girls” are still on offer during power failures, with good lighting and music, even when there is no electricity. Jackson says the generator runs all the basic equipment. ‘The main core of the business still carries on.”
Restaurants are battling through the power failures and many are loath to turn customers away.
Joseph Mahlangu, manager of Primi Piatti in Rosebank, Johannesburg, complains that during power failures, customers walk out without paying for their drinks. ‘It happens nearly every day. We lose out on a lot of things. Food gets spoilt, customers leave, but we have no option. There is a back-up system that allows us to cook some pasta dishes on gas and a computer stays on, but the loss is still great.”
The Spur is taking strain. ‘We close our doors when there is no electricity. It’s a big problem and sometimes it’s from the morning till 3pm,” says Paulos Dube, manager at the Texakhana Spur in Rosebank. Items that have been cooked are served to customers, but most are thrown out. When customers are informed about the problem, most leave, says Dube.
Lynn Nieder, owner of the Roxy Rhythm Bar in Melville, says only about 50 customers stayed after the lights went out last Saturday night. ‘It’s affecting businesses and it’s done with no warning. It’s becoming a daily thing. We don’t have generators because last year’s winter was not so bad and we thought Eskom was solving the problem. Now we have to look into it, but companies want the money up front.”
Nieder says it will take about three months to get a generator. ‘It’s bad, we just close. When the power goes, we do monitor [the club] so there are no incidents. We have fires outside where people go and chill when there are no lights. They wait awhile because they know the situation, but after that they leave and we just have to lock up. We don’t allow more people in, though. The weekends are the worst, when we are at our busiest.”
She says: ‘Eskom says to go on the [web]site and look when we will be without power, but there’s no blooming power to even go on the net.”
Audiences at the Market Theatre in Newtown, Johannesburg, had not been left in the dark yet by the start of this week. Malcolm Purkey, artistic director at the theatre, says it has experienced power failures only during the day and evening performances have not been affected.
The theatre’s technical equipment needs to run during productions, but the use of a generator, says Purkey, can disrupt performances. However, the Market hopes to obtain a generator that will allow performances to continue without interruption.
‘Obviously proper notice has to be given and Eskom should try to work around crucial times that affect the [theatre] industry and also restaurants and other businesses. If they don’t, they can kiss 2010 goodbye,” he says.
Brett Dungan, chairperson of the Federated Hospitality Association of Southern Africa, says the industry has not done ‘nearly enough” to lower electricity usage. ‘There needs to be a reduction in power. Restaurants need to find ways to reduce the amount of power they use, like leaving on the air-conditioning when it’s not necessary.”
During one week Freda Appelbaum, chef patron of French restaurant La Canard in Sandton, was affected by power failures three times a day. Diners can order from the kitchen, because all the cooking is done on gas, but items such as toast and foods that need to be cut with an electric slicer — Parma ham, for example — might be unavailable.
‘That’s six hours a day [of power failures] and we are reduced to working half-days. The kitchen has gas, but we had major problems with the computers, the seating area — which goes dark — and the telephone, which was originally on the electrical switchboard. But you would not be speaking to me if we still had it on the switchboard,” she says.
Appelbaum says Eskom’s load-shedding schedule on its website is unreliable. ‘At least give the correct information so that we can plan properly. Like this morning, we were told it would go at 10am, so we started preparing by switching off all computers and I switched off the television. The electricity went and it was not even 10am.”
La Canard, like many other restaurants, is looking into obtaining a generator, but at the moment ‘lots of candles are being used”. Says Appelbaum: ‘We tell customers that we turned the lights off so that they can have a romantic, candlelit dinner. You can still come and experience a romantic dinner.”