{"id":200813,"date":"2025-12-25T05:19:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T05:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/200813\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T05:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T05:19:11","slug":"auckland-business-owner-isnt-dreaming-of-a-light-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/200813\/","title":{"rendered":"Auckland business owner isn&#8217;t dreaming of a light Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4JVU8YO_IMG_2377_JPG\" width=\"1050\" height=\"787\" alt=\"A man holding a pile of receipts and a burger box.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nSuhail Mohammed says last Christmas was busy at his shop.<br \/>\nPhoto: Ke-Xin Li\n<\/p>\n<p>On Christmas Day, tourists are getting the rare chance to enjoy a quiet Auckland city centre.<\/p>\n<p>Most restaurants have shut their doors, but some business owners like Suhail Mohammed, who runs a burger eatery, hope the reduced competition means better business.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I want everyone whoever is passing by and is hungry can just come to my shop.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But business has not been going so well since he opened up six hours ago.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So far, I got nearly 20 customers this morning, which is OK. I thought maybe people are still sleeping and enjoying their day off. But maybe there will be more people in the evening time.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He was also open last Christmas Day, and said business was better back then.<\/p>\n<p>Christmas Day is one of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/life\/Christmas\/what-is-and-isn-t-open-on-christmas-day-in-new-zealand\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">four restricted trading days in New Zealand<\/a>, meaning almost all retail shops will be closed.<\/p>\n<p>Restaurants, dairies and fruit stores are allowed to stay open, but some may apply a 15 percent public holiday surcharge to cover extra cost.<\/p>\n<p>Mohammed said he chose not to charge a holiday surcharge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you look at the situation now, the economy, everything is already expensive for the customer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last-minute shoppers are not enjoying the limited options.<\/p>\n<p>Mohammad Uddin, business owner at a backpacker hostel, was planning something nice for his staff.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4JVU82U_IMG_2383_JPG\" width=\"1050\" height=\"787\" alt=\"A man smiling at the camera holding a bottle of soda drinks.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\nMohammad Uddin is out on some last minute shopping, but he didn&#8217;t find all the drinks he wanted.<br \/>\nPhoto: Ke-Xin Li\n<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Today my staff are working, so I want to give them a quick dinner, but I forgot some drinks, so I went to get some drinks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Uddin bought some drinks from a nearby convenience store, but they were three times more expensive than the supermarket and Uddin couldn&#8217;t get everything he wanted.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/radionz.us6.list-manage.com\/subscribe?u=211a938dcf3e634ba2427dde9&amp;id=b3d362e693\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Suhail Mohammed says last Christmas was busy at his shop. Photo: Ke-Xin Li On Christmas Day, tourists are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-200813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}