"Unfortunately, some employees have already lost hours," said Mike Williamson, owner and manager of Kitchener's Central Fresh Market, which he claims felt a 30 per cent dip in sales as pylons went up and an anticipated four months of digging began along King Street last week.

"We had to cut a lot of hours, you know, last week because you've got people basically standing around doing nothing."

So Williamson responded by taking out ads and putting up signs to guide customers into the parking lot of the 62-year-old grocery store fixture of central Kitchener.

The dip in sales became less alarming as last weekend arrived — about four or five per cent, he said. The signs — sprinkled throughout the Victoria Street, Grand River Hospital and Weber Street areas — helped some of the advertised 15,000 weekly customers find their way to Central's parking lot, they told Williamson.

Getting to Central from downtown Kitchener hasn't changed much. But getting there from uptown Waterloo takes some detours. The pharmacy directly across King Street hasn't noticed a dip in sales. However, customers are noticing they may need some Aspirin for the growing traffic headache on the pharmacy side of the street.

"I told them we can deliver it to you," pharmacist Matta Abdelnour said. "Sometimes they even park at Central and cross the street."

The 60-or-so signs Williamson has put up, and continued to put up on Monday, may not all stay in place.

Some are affixed to telephone poles, road construction warning boards and signs put up by GrandLinq, the consortium responsible for building the region's first 19-kilometre phase of light rail transit between Waterloo's Conestoga Mall and Kitchener's Fairview Park mall.

Williamson said, on Friday, the region called to say Central can't affix any signs to GrandLinq signage.

"They're telling me they'll be looking at all the signs where we put them," Williamson said.

The matter of Central affixing signs to others raises concerns about safety and legality, GrandLinq spokesperson Avril Fisken said on Monday.

As well, the overall GrandLinq approach is aimed at guiding people to all businesses or locations impacted by the construction, not just one in particular.

"Construction is never a picnic," Fisken said. "We want to work with folks to do what we can to reduce the impact of construction."

GrandLinq has been meeting in recent months with businesses to be affected by construction, she added.

Meanwhile, Williamson said Central is preparing for Easter, the busier weeks of the year. Beyond that, King Street construction will be an endurance test for the long-standing store.

"Yeah, we'll survive it," he said. "But you know, it's just to try and cut as much bleeding as you can."

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