You know when there is an economical crisis on the prowl when somebody decides to raffle their supermarket for 100 euros a ticket. This was the case of one businesswoman called Amaya Alonso, who is the owner of a self-service shop (supermercado) along el Paseo de Reina Sofía.
The objective is to sell 6,000 tickets at 100 euros to raise 60,000 (obviously) It is beyond me not to point out that 6,000 euros is equivalent to exactly one million pesetas, thus 60,000 euros is ten million – when the bloody hell are people going to stop working in pesetas?
Anyway, back to the plot. Amaya, who is a Basque by birth but long-tune Almuñécar resident, is just one of the many businesses that are feeling the squeeze – indeed, you only need to walk down C/Vélez or Alta del Mar to see empty premises, one after the other.
Amaya, again like many others, is drowning in the expense of meeting her mortgage repayments, so much so that it came to the point that it was a case of ‘trying to saving the furniture’ as the Spanish say, meaning, salvaging what you can and getting out. This was when she struck on the idea of holding the raffle, after trying no fewer than 50 real-estate agencies to sell the shop.
Anybody who buys a ticket has a one in 6,000 chance of winning a supermarket – quite what you would want to do with it, as it obviously doesn’t work, is another matter. Then again, as she pointed out, if you don’t have to pay the mortgage, the shop makes enough to make a profit. She originally worked in a bank in Madrid, before moving down here to set up this small self-service shop, specialised in stocking products from all over Europe.
Anyway, you still have plenty of time to buy a ticket if you are interested, because the draw will be held before the Notary Public on the 7th of July. Ticket purchasers are guaranteed to receive their money back if, for any reason, the draw is cancelled. One more point, if not enough tickets are sold by the 7th, the draw date will be postponed six months.