The N-332, which the town calls the carretera de Valencia, crosses Sant Joan d’Alacant as a long commercial avenue: large stores, retail parks and leisure centres on both sides, and smaller shops in between. Since the town stopped living from the huerta, its economy has run on services, and a good part of it runs along that road.
For anyone who opens a shop there, the locks are the first thing touched every morning.
The shutter lock
A roller shutter is locked at the bottom, by a lock in the bottom rail or a padlock through a hasp. It is the lock nearest the ground, on a busy road, so it collects grit, rain splash and whatever is swept along the pavement.
- Keep it clean: a dry brush along the bottom rail now and then, and a puff of dry lubricant in the keyhole every few months.
- Do not oil a padlock heavily: oil traps dust, and dust stiffens the shackle.
- Turn it gently: if the key will not go round, lift the shutter slightly with your other hand to take the weight off the bolt.
When it seizes completely, it is almost always at opening time. That is the call nobody wants to make, and the reason to deal with a stiff shutter lock before it fails.
The glass door
Shop doors in aluminium frames have a cylinder like a house door, and often floor or frame bolts as well. The cylinder is turned dozens of times a day by different hands. When it starts to drag, replacing it before it jams costs far less than a lost morning.
Keys that walked out with former staff
The quietest risk in any shop is the key that left with someone. Not because former staff are dishonest, but because nobody can account for every copy over a few years.
- Keep a written list of who holds which key.
- When someone leaves without returning theirs, change the cylinders that key opened.
- If several doors and the shutter should open with one key, they can be changed together to a matching set.
Plan it for the quiet hours
Commercial lock work is best booked before opening or after closing, so customers never see a toolbox. If the premises are ever forced, the order to do things in after a break-in applies to a shop just as it does to a home. And if it is your car, not the shop, that is locked with the keys inside, this guide covers the car park.