If you want to buy toys at a real toy store, you have to be quick. The toy store Novita closes its doors on April 30. After 64 years. The last in Gennep.
“Toys are available everywhere. From the Action to every supermarket. We can’t take that anymore. “
It is a household name in Gennep. The Novita. Everything was for sale. From carnival costumes to fireworks, from furniture to games. Now the fireworks sale and the furniture store at Spoorstraat 146 remain. The toy store on Europaplein will close on 30 April. Competition is too great.
In addition to toys, Novita will also stop selling carnival clothing from next year.
“The shopping landscape has changed. People go to https://medium.com/@playtime discount stores first. If these shops don’t have it, they will only come here. They then say at the checkout: “The Action didn’t have it.” They have no idea how much they hurt us with this, “says owner Norbert de Haan.
We then only have the crumbs We can’t live on that.
Beginning of the End
The Novita shop in Gennep was founded in 1956. The business quickly grew into a department store with various buildings on Spoorstraat. It consisted of a seasonal shop with, for example, garden furniture, a department store with a gift department, and a home improvement store.
A few years ago, the games department moved to a building on Europaplein.
Intertoys, Bart Smit Novita
Things have been going bad for toy stores for ages. Since 2005, nearly 30 percent of toy stores have closed. Well-known examples of this are the Intertoys and Bart Smit. Now Novita joins this list.
Gennep’s last toy store will remain open until April 30. People are going to miss the store. But these are regular customers. When new people suddenly come, it is too late. They should have been earlier. ”
Children ‘protest’ Against Toy Museum Closure
Dozens of children gathered in front of the town hall in Deventer on Tuesday afternoon. While riding the tractor and go-kart, they made their voice heard for the preservation of the Toy Museum.
The ‘protest’ in front of the town hall was filmed and was mainly intended to draw attention to the political meeting – the Council table – about the toy museum, among other things.
“The Raadstafel is the last opportunity to speak out for the preservation of the Toy Museum,” says Lieke Kooyman of the Toy Museum.
Closure
The College of B and W wants to close the toy museum in its current form and exhibit the collection in various places in the city. Recently, general director Garrett Verhoeven of the Deventer Verhaal foundation resigned. He indicated that he had no confidence in the cultural vision of the municipality of Deventer and the future of the Toy Museum.