Shops and paths were littered with clusters of people trying to grab retail bargains, people that had travelled from miles around. Over one hundred shops and stalls decorated the streets which were woven through pathways, tunnels, roads and cobbled streets.Michael Richards and Johnny Phillips knew the place well; it was a shopping haven. You could buy anything from knocked off clothes -- from dodgy dealers working in the backs of vans -- to expensive jewellery and designer attire.It was also littered with restaurants. You could dine with fine wine and Italian food at one of the most respectable restaurants in the area; buy hamburgers, hotdogs and other processed, mashed together meat products from the many vendors operating out of vans; grease up your arteries by dining at one of the two fish and chip restaurants; sugar-up in style at the high class ice-cream parlour or grab a takeaway of Chinese or Indian.The town and its vast shopping community attracted everyone from middle class shoppers to teenage shoplifters, and the numerous jewellery shops, betting shops and large department shops also attracted the occasional armed robber.Now, it had drawn the attention of two conmen.
