The awarding of three merchants, who have gone out of business to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, rekindles the spotlight on the commercial fabric of Caluso, committed to resisting, through ups and downs, an economy still in trouble
CALUSO. The awarding of three merchants, who have gone out of business to enjoy a well-deserved retirement, rekindles the spotlight on the commercial fabric of Caluso, committed to resisting, through ups and downs, an economy still in trouble.
Among the three exhibitors, who went up on the stage of the San Andrea theater last Saturday, only Salvatore Simeone, passed the baton to his daughter, Marcella, an expression of artisan excellence, in pastry and bakery awarded with the title of “master of taste” . The others, Bruno Rolli, who for 44 years, in via Roma, managed an appliance store and Giancarlo Ozzello, owner of a pastry shop in the central Piazza Ubertini, leave the shutters down. Accompanied by his nephew Gabriele Casadei, world canoe champion, Salvatore Simeone, visibly moved, received the plaque from the councilor for commerce Roberto Podio.
«I started working as a bakery boy at the age of 12 – said Simeone – and then I opened a shop at the beginning of Via Vittorio Veneto. I worked for 63 years, but I am happy with the goal I have reached ». And there he formed his daughter Marcella, now owner of the Bistro in via Bettoja. The Calusian trade network is made up of about a hundred neighborhood shops (clothing, footwear, florists, two jewelers and two optical centers), bars and restaurants, parapharmacy pharmacies (they have risen to 5), hairdressers and beauticians (they have reached eleven ) to which are added three medium-sized shopping centers, a new discount of the In’s chain, which should open in a couple of weeks along the ring road, seven farms specialized in the production and sale of ErBaluce wines, in addition to the Cooperative producers Erbaluce and a new winery in via Roma, two fitness centers and a historic company for the production and sale of fabrics and curtains. But the data at the end of 2022 reveal all the difficulties of a sector that has known better times and that was united in the associated corporate body “Caluso to live”, one of the first in Canavese to promote trade, including customer loyalty and discount campaigns. The business ceased in 2020 after a failed attempt to keep it alive. The number of shops that have lowered the shutters in the last three years has risen to 18: and only three new businesses that have opened between via Bettoja and via Roma. But there are also those who believe and invest in it, like Carlo Citrone of the La Stecca winery, opened after a careful renovation of a historic building in via Roma, and Claudia Actis Alesina, owner of the underwear and sewing shop in via Bettoia, which has doubled its spaces. –
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