Conflict in Brás drives away customers.
Street vendors from other states are canceling trips to the capital after clashes that occurred throughout the week between vendors and the Military Police in the region. Customer traffic has dropped by half, according to shopkeepers.
The conflicts between street vendors and the Military Police (PM), which have been recurring throughout this week in Brás, a central area of São Paulo, are already driving away the region's main clientele: resellers from other states. In the last two days, tour companies have been arriving in the capital with only half of the expected passengers, after many canceled their trips at the last minute.
“I had 40 shopkeepers confirmed. As soon as the news started on television, they began calling to cancel. When there were only 27 left, I thought: if one more cancels, I'm going to postpone the trip,” said tour guide Eva Marques, 39, who works for a company in Belo Horizonte.
Maria Aparecida Rodrigues de Souza, 50, was supposed to come with two buses full of shopkeepers from Curitiba to shop at the Feirinha da Madrugada (early morning market) today. “But we ended up coming with only one. Besides the fear of violence, people don't want to find closed shops and waste their trip.” A few hours before departure, 16 of Maria Aparecida's passengers cancelled their trip. This information comes from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.