Second-hand car showrooms suffer after crackdown
Second-hand car showrooms on the Salwa Road say they have been hit hard by an ongoing crackdown on cars encroaching public spaces.
The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning, in partnership with the Traffic Department, launched the campaign to clean the streets off all illegal structures, abandoned cars as well as those occupying public spaces.
Haphazardly parked cars obstructing traffic was a common sight on both sides of Salwa Road — home to several second-hand car showrooms and other shops.
Now the streets and walkways wear a cleaner look, with the shops having been forced to take out their cars from public areas.
The campaign has been executed by Al Rayyan Municipality, in collaboration with the Traffic Department.
Several showroom owners said the crackdown had nearly paralysed their business and they were not given time to find alternative arrangements.
All cars encroaching public areas were removed about two months ago. Then inspectors came and told us that we are not allowed to park our cars in parking lots in front of our shops.
When asked why, they said these spaces are intended for the visitors, said the manager of an affected shop.
He said inspectors had also imposed fines of up to QR10,000 on shops that violated the rule.
"We are sort of closed now. We can park a maximum eight cars in our covered parking area. And they are mostly expensive cars, which are not easily sold.
"Another problem is that women customers won't like to come inside to check cars. We also park cars behind our shops but most customers are not familiar with this place," he added.
He said some shops had taken up the issue with officials at the municipality but they had expressed helplessness.
Officials have indicated that Salwa Road has been specially targeted in the campaign as it is a key artery linking Qatar with other GCC countries, he added.
Traders felt that the only solution to the problem is shifting the showrooms to a suitable location.
"We are not against the law but the campaign was launched in a hurry. We need six months to one year to find a new location and make arrangements for shifting," said a showroom manager.
He said in Dubai, no second- hand car showrooms are on the main roads. Each has 600 to 1,000sqm area for operations. "Give us land to build a new showroom and enough time to relocate."
The Barwa Real Estate company recently announced plans to build an exclusive "motor city" for second-hand cars trade which is expected to solve the problem. The Peninsula
St # 10 in Salwa Industrial Area is another such place. It will take atleast 25 minutes to move 100 meter. Never use that road even by mistake.
The new Salwa road is fantastic, but off to the sides there are no parking spaces because of hundreds of showroom cars parked in the public parking spaces. This forces everyone to double park causing absolute chaos. The mechanic shops are no better with most of them fixing cars on the road blocking traffic, or have cars parked in public spaces for weeks on end. I can see something has got to give as Salwa becomes beautiful, but still has grotty shops off to the side that are eye-sores for people. A motor city sounds like a good idea.