The 2G rule never applied to fashion stores - "Actually, it's almost a fraud"

Created: 01/05/2022, 8:00 AM

By: Jennifer Battaglia

Florian Lipp from the Rid department store opened his doors to everyone again before Christmas - regardless of their vaccination status.

© Rudder

Fashion shops in Bavaria never fell under the 2G regulation, the Bavarian Administrative Court made that clear.

Shopkeepers are offended.

In the run-up to Christmas, they had only allowed vaccinated and convalescents into their stores - and suffered a sharp drop in sales as a result.

District Weilheim Schongau

- "I feel really ripped off," says Eva Maurer about the fact that clothing stores in Bavaria never fell under the 2G regulation. On December 29, the Bavarian Administrative Court (BayVHG for short) rejected an urgent application against 2G in fashion stores as inadmissible on the grounds that clothing stores were not affected by the regulation anyway. "Clothing is one of the basic human needs, the importance of which for the general public does not take second place to shoes, books, cut flowers and gardening tools", according to the BayVGH.

The 2G regulation in retail came into force on December 8th.

Since then, people who have not been vaccinated against the coronavirus have only been allowed to shop in stores that cover their daily needs.

These include, for example, supermarkets, bookstores, garden centers or shoe shops.

In its decision, the BayVGH made it clear that there is also a daily need for clothing.

2G in fashion stores: fewer customers, less sales

Eva Maurer, who runs the fashion shop of the same name in the old town of Schongau, is speechless. "Actually, what happened here is almost a fraud." Like many others, the Schongauerin had to accept a drop in sales in the run-up to Christmas because fewer customers came due to the 2G regulation. “I took even more in December 2020,” she says. That, although a nationwide lockdown was in effect from the middle of the month. The businesswoman thinks that the decisions made by politics are no longer comprehensible. "For me, it's all wild activism and not fully fermented."

As in the previous winter, Maurer has too many goods in her shop.

“Actually, you can get rid of clothes easily in the Christmas business, but that wasn't the case.” However, she reckons that she will be able to sell the clothes in the coming winter as well.

Andreas Huber, owner of Huber Moden, is not sure whether more customers would have come to his branches in Schongau, Landsberg and Dießen without restrictions.

“Of course we took part in 2G,” he says.

"We were just happy not to have to close again."

The fact that everyone is allowed to shop in fashion stores does not seem to have reached all customers.

"Occasionally, vaccinated people still want to show their ID at the entrance," says Huber.

The big rush has so far failed to materialize.

"Although you had noticed even before the introduction of 2G that significantly more people were on the move."

List in Infection Protection Ordinance is not complete

In the Rid department store in Weilheim and Penzberg, the 2G regulation no longer applied before the Christmas holidays.

Regardless of the respective vaccination status, anyone who wanted could shop here.

Managing director Florian Lipp had consulted a lawyer who came to the conclusion that the Rid range is also part of daily needs.

The decisive factor here was a decision by the BayVGH in mid-December.

In it, an application by a toy retailer against the 2G regulation was rejected with a very similar reason to last week's decision.

According to the BayVGH, what is part of daily needs and what is not has not been conclusively clarified, but only "standard examples" are listed in the Infection Protection Ordinance.

"It was questionable whether a Christmas tree that I buy once a year should be part of my daily needs, a pair of socks that you need every day, but not", says Florian Lipp.

He informed the District Office of the decision to make his department store accessible to everyone again.

“They disagreed there, but it turned out that I was right.” Lipp found the previous implementation of 2G to be “really annoying for customers”.

According to him, everyone in the department store, both customers and employees, adheres to the hygiene measures meticulously.

In order to minimize the risk of infection, air purification devices and plexiglass panes were also installed.

"Since Corona came into existence, I have not known that anyone was infected in any of our department stores," says Lipp.

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