PANDEMONIUM IN PRIMARK

Pandemonium as Primark opens its doors

Shop 'til you drop became an ugly reality in London yesterday when Primark, king of the pile 'em high, sell 'em cheap recipe for retail, opened its flagship store in the West End.

At one point, security guards feared shoppers could be seriously injured in the melee at the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street which followed ill-founded rumours that everything had been priced at £1.
Mounted police, bobbies on the beat and officers from the Safer Neighbourhoods team joined forces with Primark's security force to try and restrain the thousands of bargain hunters, some of whom had been queuing since 2am.
At one point, Primark was forced to stop entry to the store in order to bring the situation under control.
It was an every-woman-for-herself situation as shoppers crawled, scrambled and clambered over one another to be first in when the security shutters opened up at 10am. Some shoppers were knocked to the ground, tears were shed, hairdos wrecked and elbows became weapons of mass destruction as people stormed the racks and rails like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

One shop assistant received minor injuries and a door was reportedly broken in the surge.
I have never seen anything like it. Even the first day of Harrods' sale is a vicarage tea party compared to the Primark pandemonium. By 11.15am, there were still crowds three and four deep winding around the block on both sides and spilling onto the roadway as a mounted policewoman appealed for people to 'please stay on the pavement'. Security guards estimated tens of thousands had arrived by midday.
Mothers with young children and babies in buggies began complaining. "Why aren't they giving out water, like they do at Topshop, when you're waiting in a queue," said Viv Johnson of Crouch End.
"We're managing the situation on all three doors," said Breege O'Donoghue, the marketing director. "As two come out, two can go in, as three leave, three can come in. We thought we'd be busy but nobody ever could have anticipated this. It's just crazy. They can get exactly the same stuff in any of our stores in Kilburn, Wandsworth, Hammersmith, Tooting, Bromley, Croydon or Watford."

Inside the 70,000 sq-ft new flagship, it looked as if a horde of locusts had struck. Empty hangers showed where bargain-mad shoppers had lunged for armloads of high-waist jeans at £12, smock-dresses for a tenner and £4 organic T-shirts. Girls tried things on where they stood, simply chucking on the floor anything that did not fit. Women squatted to sort through their finds, before joining the queues for the tills which were 50-strong and more. Some had been queuing for an hour and had no idea when they would be able to pay.
A group of schoolgirls from Westminster said they were there to shop for cheap clothes to lounge around in. "We wouldn't come here for going-out clothes."
Hayley Ansell, from Chigwell, estimated she had waited 40 minutes to get into the store but said: "It was worth it. I got all my summer stuff. Now I just have to make it to the till and that looks like it could be another 45 minutes at least."
The items that sold out yesterday were Metallic parkas, £15; Cream handbags with flowers, £6; Cashmere sweaters, £22 -£30; Organic T-shirts, £4; Black and white floral smock, £12 and Cotton ra-ra skirts, £3.

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