The former Birchall Reality is about to be re-let.
Just look at the over-vivid signage. Is this appropriate in a conservation area? Does this cheapen the town? Can the proprietors (believed to be in business nearby) get away with this? It’s reminiscent of vulgar inner city fringes of kebab shops and pizza joints.
There are ways that businesses can market their shopfronts in distinctive ways without reliance on such starkness.
Mercifully, we don’t have many examples of such indelicacy in Rhuthun/Ruthin (the short lived Alew Care window signage springs to mind). But where one creeps in others may follow.
This makes the farrago surrounding the former ‘purple shop’ appear to be a national treasure.
Before Isaac Birchall, this was a vape shop. It is about to sell vapes once again. I suppose that it’s as close as we now get to an old fashioned tobacconists. Tobacconists used to sell sweets and snacks alongside tobacco products, you may recall.
In their day, tobacconists were all rather benign. Since then, the world has moved on and we understand far more about the dangers of inhalation, especially as regards young people. If you can buy vapes at the supermarket or filling station, why not on the high street?