Business as usual for Sun readers in Derry as city's newsagents ignore council's boycott call

Readers of The Sun in Derry have had no difficulty in buying it this week - despite the local council requesting that newsagents stop selling the paper.

Derry City and Strabane District Council last week passed a motion calling on local shopkeepers stop selling the British tabloid..

The motion, put forward by the independent councillor Paul Gallagher, included supporting the group ‘Total Eclipse of the S*n’, a group set up specifically to ask shops to no longer stock the paper.

The move prompted concerns over whether local councillors should have any say in what papers are stocked by local newsagents, and that the council had put ‘pressure’ on local shopkeepers by passing the motion.

However, the request has by and large been ignored by local shopkeepers and newsagents, with readers of The Sun experiencing no difficulty in picking up the paper despite the motion.

Liam Clifford, owner of Racecourse Stores, said that ‘nobody was paying attention’ to the council’s request, while the Day Today store in Heron Way said that there had been ‘no change’ in the number of copies they sold.

The Mace Express in Clooney Way also reported that there had been no change in their sales of The Sun, while a number of other newsagents said they would be respecting the ‘personal preferences’ of their customers, and not the council, when it came to what papers they stocked.

A number of shop owners said that they sold so few copies of The Sun that such a request would have little or no impact on their business.

Speaking to the Derry News, John Gill, who runs Gill’s newsagents on Park Avenue, said that The Sun ‘wasn’t a great seller anyway’, while Paul Moran, of Moran’s Centra and Service Station on The Strand Road said that they sold ‘only seven or eight copies’ on a daily basis.

However, a number of newsagents said the council’s request had no effect on them as they did not stock The Sun.

Terry White, of White’s News and Views on Westland Street, said he stopped selling the paper a number of years ago, ‘out of principle’.