Napier city celebrates its best retailers

From left, Carol Pinker and Trish Wallace from Maddisons won two awards, Style and Ambience and Best Independent. Napier City Business Awards, MTG Napier.

In its biggest ever format, the MRD Napier City Business Awards last night celebrated the city centre's hard-working retailers in a glitzy awards ceremony at the MTG in Napier.

Organised by the CBD's business association, Napier City Business Inc, NCBI acting manager Steph Kennard said about 100 people attended the event, which was now in its third year, after a long hiatus.

"This is the biggest one we have done for quite some time. It had three new categories this year (the Up and Coming, Futureproofer and Personality categories) and we had twice as many people come as we did last year.

"The reason why we focus on the retailers is that there are other awards for business and hospitality and various other celebrations but we don't really have anything for retail. So, this is about celebrating them and acknowledging their contribution to the city."

A total of seven awards were given out on the night, with five CBD retailers taking home the spoils.

Furnishing store Madisons was named Best Independent award, sponsored by Sam MacDonald of Bayleys.

The Tennyson St-based store then also picked up the MRD Style and Ambiance award.

The Quest Hotel Napier award for Best Chain went to Barkers Menswear.

Vintage clothing store Two Lippy Ladies took out the MRD Future Proofer award, before Karla Lewis, from Two Lippy Ladies, was named as MRD's Personality award winner, rounding off a brace of accolades for the store.

Phillip Petrie, from Overland Footwear won the Napier City Council Up and Coming award.

The final award of the night, the BNZ People's Choice award, went to Max Fashions, which beat off stiff competition from nine other finalists.

Kennard said this year the People's Choice category was the most popular it had ever been.

"We had 3000 votes for the award, which was 1000 more than last year and also 2000 more than the year before, so that category is an incredibly popular one."