Published March 30, 2020 2:22PM
If you’re considering selling or giving away this year’s homegrown feijoa crop from your front gate during lockdown, forget it.
While is there is no specific directive about this issue on the Government’s Covid-19 website, officials have been clear in their responses to media and public inquiries.
Gisborne District Council has also ruled out frontyard fruit trading.
In a media statement, GDC Chief Executive Nedine Thatcher Swann warned all non-essential services were to shut down immediately.
“This will be enforced by the Police. There are no exceptions! From selling fruit on the side of the road to takeaway deliveries – none of these are permitted in this Covid-19 alert level 4 alert lockdown.”
Principal media adviser for the Ministry of Health Charlotte Gendall said collection of goods would be breaching the non-essential travel ban.
“People are only permitted to travel for essential food shopping, hospital or GP visits, if they are essential services workers travelling to and from work, or if they are making short, local journeys for exercise,” Ms Gendall said.
“Any Facebook page encouraging or facilitating non-essential travel during the lockdown would be in breach.”
A media spokeswoman for the Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment, Astrid Smeele added, “food is available through supermarkets and dairies”.
The issues of casual roadside and online trading has been a grey area as the country comes to grips with this unprecedented lockdown phase and policymakers iron out details.
There are no specific directives on the Government’s Covid-19 website about roadside selling or casual online trading.
While New Zealand online trading giant Trade Me has largely suspended its business, Facebook’s Marketplace has remained active since the lockdown.
Several people in this region have advertised their surplus home-grown feijoa crops.
In Hawke’s Bay, a user has offered “glove-picked” feijoas.
One user says she will leave the fruit in a bucket at the gate; people can pay into her letter box.
Questioned via the Government’s Unite Against Covid-19 Facebook page about casual online trading, officials said:
“There are no hard and fast rules for the online buying and selling of goods through Facebook but all non-essential travel is not allowed.
“It is good that some pages are closing but others may be valuable providers of community support . . . so it is up to administrators for now.”
They expressed concern over cash transfers saying the virus can survive for several days on surfaces particularly metal (coins).
Information on both the Government’s Covid-19 Facebook page and its website confirm non-contact type deliveries are allowed but stress that is only if they do not require excessive travel and are only for essential goods and services.
“You can arrange to have your shopping delivered, or have family, friends or neighbours drop off food or groceries. You just need to ask them to leave these at the door, rather than come in.”
New postal guidelines outlined on the Government website rule out any postal or courier delivery of non-essential items. The site advises, “you should only post or courier items that are essential to the provision of the necessities of life”.
Sellers deemed by the Government as essential businesses could courier items but non-essential businesses could not send items until the lockdown ended, the site advises.
That information, however, is partly negated elsewhere on the site where a mock question anticipates people asking, “Can I still shop online for clothes/electronics/furniture etc. and will it get delivered?”
The answer to that:
“It depends on the retailer. Most have either suspended their online stores entirely or kept theirs on the basis that all orders will be processed once the lockdown is over.”
