Family owned business Michael's Jewellers is closing down after 22 years in Mount Isa, with a clearance sale ending on September 30.
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Michaelangelo Grimaldi is the store’s namesake and owner, a jovial character with a wicked sense of humour and an eye for quality gemstones.
Mount Isa’s foremost jeweller is off to the Gold Coast after following in the footsteps of his Italian watchmaker father, Joe Grimaldi.
“He was a watchmaker out near Bari, then Florence, Port Kembla, Woolongong, Lismore where I was born, then he went back to Italy for a while,” Michaelangelo said.
Another jeweller taught Michaelangelo his skills, however, a Spanish immigrant with big business in Sydney.
Now approaching his 50th birthday, Michaelangelo says it is time to move on from the place he’s called home since he was three years old.
“I was going to stay here til I was 50, but with the current economic climate… It’s just accelerated in the last three years, things weren’t changing in Mount Isa. Mount Isa has gotten really slow,” he said.
I equate it this way; if you shop with a local guy, you’re probably helping their kids with ballet lessons, you’re helping them donate stuff and sponsorship of sport.
- Michaelangelo Grimaldi
“During the boom it was a little bit hard, because rents were so ridiculously high, not many people were shopping. Then the boom stopped so I got that whammy as well. Then about three or four years ago you could see it starting to wind backwards.”
His views on the town’s economic situation are frankly bleak, but not without reason. Over the last three years Michaelangelo has seen many Mount Isa stores close their doors, and he says the world wide web is partly to blame.
“I think online has really impacted Mount Isa a lot. Mount Isans are frequenting the online shopping more and more, they think everything is cheaper. I think that open world free trade was a bad idea. I think it’s going to get a lot tougher. "
Interestingly, Michaelangelo said one of the biggest blows was in May, when Glencore’s director of copper business threatened to close the Mount Isa copper smelter.
“That was when I noticed a dramatic kick in the guts, and I thought, oh no!”
His business dropped off another 30 per cent after the announcement, he said, even with the retraction.
“What they didn’t realise is the carry-on effect through town. It was dead. It’s all well and good to make a threat, but when you’ve got businesses shutting down now because it’s just gotten even harder, I think it’s pretty irresponsible.”
New mining operations in the North West could see local business improve, but Michaelangelo is skeptical.
“Now things are picking up, but if you’re not attached to the mines somehow, you’re really not going to do much,” he said.
“A lot of the new people in town, they’re all from the city and they will wait to do their shopping until they leave, or they will go online.
“You know, they whinge for seven day trading but seven day trading is not necessary in a town like Mount Isa. Not when you’re working four on four off or something and the shops are open til 9pm.
People come here and say to me 'Oh Mount Isa’s not Brisbane’, and I’m like ‘You’re a moron. There’s one Brisbane, one Sydney, and only one Mount Isa.
- Michaelangelo Grimaldi
“You’ve got to spend money to keep it. You can’t expect a shop to stay there if you’re not going to shop with it, it’s like anything. Water your garden, it comes good. Ignore it and it dies off. And that’s what’s happening.
"I shop as local as much as possible. The only time I go online is if it’s a shop I know. I won’t go overseas, I just keep it all in Australia.
“I equate it this way; if you shop with a local guy, you’re probably helping their kids with ballet lessons, you’re helping them donate stuff and sponsorship of sport.
“People come here and say to me 'Oh Mount Isa’s not Brisbane’, and I’m like ‘You’re a moron. There’s one Brisbane, one Sydney, one Mount Isa,” he said.
Michaelangelo said the decision to move was not made lightly, but was made easier by the demand for contract work on the coast – like this gold skull bracelet, now worth $30,000 with black diamonds inset.
Michael’s Jewellers on West Street will be closing down on September 30, before Michaelangelo and his family relocate in October. We wish them all the best for the future.