Ransacked during the 2023 riots in Nîmes, the Point de la Chance tobacco shop reopens in Pissevin after ten months of hardship

Arif et son fils Asknder n’ont rien lâché pour rouvrir leur commerce. Midi Libre – Correspondant

The only tobacco game in the Valdegour, Pissevin and Super-Nîmes area had been closed since June 29, 2023. Its owners fought for its reopening, not without difficulty.

Le Point de la Chance, tobacco-PMU-various games, a real institution of Super-Nîmes, has just reopened after ten months of interruption of activity, as explained its owner Mohamed Arif. Or, quite simply, Arif as all the inhabitants of Pissevin and Valdegour call him: "I have had a business in the neighborhood for 26 years: first in Vadegour and now here, Galerie Marcel-Sant, since 2017. Everything was going pretty well until&rsquo ;to the riots of 2023: following the story of young Nahël, the business was ransacked and it has been closed since June 29, 2023. For a few days, with my son Asknder, we have been able to reopen in this room, a few meters from the old one."

A journey of galleys

Summarized like this, the story seems simple whereas, for Arif, it was not: "It’s a difficult journey that we are going through. The SPL Agate does not make things easier for us, whether in terms of rents, facilities… The lease of the closed business was not renewed, and fortunately I had kept the space in which we are reopening today, otherwise we would have been on the street and there would not be There would no longer be this type of business in a neighborhood with thousands of inhabitants. You should know that today we are the only tobacco games in the Valdegour-Pissevin-Super Nîmes area. This room was our escape route."

"Without this tobacco game, it’s the death of the neighborhood"

And the hassle doesn't stop there: "We went from a 220 m2 business to one of 38 m2 and we were delivered tobacco late, hence an additional shortfall. There is no internet: Orange tells us that a prefectural decree confirms the ban on the movement of technicians in the area. There is also all the work. Nobody helps us, continues Arif before concluding: "Without this tobacco game, it’s the death of neighborhood, because it is also a place of life, of meeting, a friendly place which strongly animates Pissevin."

Arif and his son are pugnacious, the Point de la chance is well established to bring something more to the life of the neighborhood, to the great happiness of its inhabitants.

Le Point de la chance, 119 Marcel-Sant gallery, Nîmes.