The former president and managing director of Astwood Dickinson says that governments present and past have dropped the ball when it comes to his industry.

Tommy Dickinson says that if Government continues to deny there is a problem, the retail industry as well as the people it employs face a gloomy future.

Mr. Dickinson, 67, sold his two Front Street jewellery stores to A.S. Coopers last week. When he spoke with this newspaper, the main store was buzzing with cruise ship tourists.

Business at the 100-year-old jewellery store is "fine", he said but the stores "are also affected by outside influences similar to retailers on Front Street and elsewhere in the city."

"The last few years have been challenging for all of us. If I were younger and had the stamina I would probably enjoy digging in again and working but for me I'm quite happy with the arrangement now," he said.

The arrangement now will see Mr. Dickinson remain a consultant to the business as well as landlord for the main store ? he also plans to devote more time to travelling. His children are all pursuing careers outside of retail and he is at a point "where you just don't have the fire to keep going".

"For the last couple years I have been looking around for some kind of partnership that would mean that I would not have to be here as much as I have in the past."

The Dickinson family is not the only Bermuda family of late to step away from the retail industry. Recently, the owners of Smith's department store agreed to sell out to Trimingham's. It is a trend Mr. Dickinson sees continuing for three reasons ? more selection abroad, high duty and the expense of doing business in Bermuda.

"Bermudians should be allowed to shop abroad. It is something we all do and it will continue and there is no way you can overcome that. You can never have the kind of selections that you find on the West Coast," he said.

"In the past Bermuda has been successful because we have had a difference in price and that is really what drove our business particularly the tourist business. Since the Kennedy round of tariffs in 1962 that has slowly chipped away at the differential between our prices and the US because the US lowered their tariffs and we raised our tariffs during the period."

Mr. Dickinson adds that Bermuda should have given serious consideration to becoming a duty free port years ago.

"They didn't and now it is probably too late," he said. "Our duty structure is a money making object for Government. The problem with that is that since about 1985 the amount of retail, particularly tourist retail, merchandise has been slowly eroding which means the income to Government is slowly eroding."

Years ago, Mr. Dickinson said the retail industry was the biggest supplier of cash to the Government. While that has changed, he says that neither the former Government nor the current one have come to really understand how vital the retail trade is to Bermuda.

"At one point the retail industry was the second largest employer in Bermuda with the hotel industry being right beside us," Mr. Dickinson said. "Most of the people we employ are blue collar workers and retail has benefited the community in that respect."

According to the latest Census, there were 2,898 people employed in the sales sector in the year 2000.

"When those jobs dry up, and they are slowly drying, up you've got more people who don't have the tools to be a doctor or lawyer or an accountant, they may not even have the tools to be an exempted company employees, so retail plays a very important part and in my opinion both governments have dropped the ball in that respect," he said.

For him, the solution may lie in dropping tariffs on certain items. To make up the lost income, Government could introduce a casino.

"It may be for tourist items so it makes it more attractive to tourists but the one concern would be how do you replace whatever duties so far as income and there are a number of ways," he said. "From one extreme to the other you can get if from doing a scaled duty structure and at the other end of the spectrum you can introduce a gambling casino and a percentage of that goes to Government."

He also sees the trend of locals opening up more foreign brand boutiques on the Island as a positive for the industry because it helps Bermuda firms become more competitive.

"On the other hand I would hate to see a McDonald's here for obvious reasons. I would question bringing in a Wal-Mart. That would be a disaster for us. I think you are going to see more small boutique type stores rather than larger stores because you have to keep your costs down. The cost of labour is just horrendous."

The smaller boutique store is a format the buyer of his own stores is embracing ? at least for the next two years or so while the A.S. Cooper building is knocked down and replaced with a mixed use office/retail structure.

In order to continue to operate in the sector during the construction period, Peter Cooper has secured free standing smaller locations on Front Street including Astwood Dickinson, AS Cooper Man and Cooper's Cachet as well as the junior's store Cooper's Express in Washington Mall. He is also poised to sign for additional retail space for his other departments however he has not disclosed the new locations because no leases have been signed.

Mr. Cooper plans to integrate his fine jewellery business into the Astwood Dickinson's two locations to ensure that his own jewellery department will have the space to continue to operate during the rebuild.

A.S. Cooper and Sons will keep the Astwood Dickinson name and will also continue to sell its jewellery and watch lines in addition to those sold by Coopers. The department store staff will be integrated into the Astwood Dickinson locations before the five-storey A.S. Coopers store is knocked down in February.

Mr. Dickinson said last week that only one of his 25 employees will no longer have a position because of the merger.

"There is only one as far as I can tell and that happens to be the fact that we have a bookkeeper and of course they have a bookkeeper but we don't anticipate any redundancies,"

Mr. Dickinson says that while the sale of his stores began with a casual chat on Front Street several months ago, there is a lot of synergy between the two company's with the families relationship stemming back generations. Mr. Dickinson's great grandmother was in fact a Cooper and the two families were neighbours in Southampton.

"Peter and his family and ours grew up together so we were in each other's houses all the time in our teen years so there is a lot of synergy between the two companies from the start." Mr. Dickinson said.

"We're very pleased. My family is very pleased and the Coopers are very pleased."