BOSTON — Mother’s Day is right around the corner and many are wondering if flower shops will re-open.
Winston Flowers planned to only open its industrial facility on South Hampton Road in Boston to fulfill online orders. But the city told them they can’t open despite other florists running similar operations.
“Every other florist is open right now and they’ve been open every day delivering flowers,” Ted Winston, co-owner of Winston Flowers said.
Boston 25 did find several local florists still completing online orders. Winston Flowers says they planned to implement several safety precautions before opening.
“We hired a full time nurse. We spent $10,000 to have the whole building cleaned and fumigated. We were going to have a cleaning crew there 24/7. We were going to space it out and give everyone PPE and have everyone 6 feet apart," Winston said.
Winston says he was excited to get his employees back to work and his customers were even happier.
“We had a lot of people say, ‘We missed you’ and how florists should be essential because a lot of people are down right now and flowers bring them up," Winston said.
But now that the city put a stop to the popular florist’s plans and now Winston doesn’t know if his business will survive.
“I don’t even know where we go from here because in order to take that chance we ordered a whole shipment of flowers," Winston said.
Winston says this is their busiest time of year and Mother’s Day is often make or break for florists.
“This is like the worst 8-week period that a florist could be closed for because you’re talking about Easter, Passover, Administrative Professional’s Day and now Mother’s Day,” Winston said.
The small business says they only want to be treated the same as other retailers during this pandemic.
“If Saks Fifth Avenue is closed you can still go to Saks online and buy things, you can get almost anything in the world on Amazon. It’s almost like during this whole process they’re taking all small businesses and trying to move that business to Amazon,” Winston said.
Boston 25 asked Gov. Baker about flower shops during his Thursday press briefing but he declined to answer.
“We’ll have more to say on that one before the… we have plenty of times until Mother’s Day," Baker said.
The City of Boston tells Boston 25 that under the State’s order, florists are not considered an essential business.
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