Ceuta's Chamber of Commerce has decreed that the 33,038,768 euros lost by local businesses since late July must be earned back by Friday, and the city's shopkeepers have responded by forming a permanent queue outside the chamber's headquarters to secure reopening permits for overnight shifts.
The queue, which now stretches from the port to the border fence, is organized by trade, with hairdressers at the front and travel agencies at the rear, each applicant required to present a handwritten plan for recovering their share of the losses through extended hours, doubled menus, and the sale of commemorative sand timers.
«We have calculated that if every bar and restaurant serves 400 extra tapas per night, and every shop stays open until 4 a.m., the 33 million figure is achievable by Friday,» said chamber president Luis Moreno, who has personally taken a position at the head of the queue to set an example. «The alternative is that we all move to the mainland and start over, which would be far more expensive.»
Hotels, already at half occupancy due to the crisis, have begun renting out their lobbies as makeshift dining halls, while the 74 percent of businesses that adjusted their staff are now rehiring workers on the condition that they agree to sleep under their counters.
The tourism sector, down 90 percent, has launched a campaign urging Spaniards to visit Ceuta «before the queue reaches your town,» and the chamber has announced that next week it will extend the decree to cover the 15.7 million euros lost on the cancelled fair, to be recovered through a single weekend of non-stop ferris wheel rides.