Local hospitality businesses vent frustration at further restrictions

Local hospitality business owners have vented their frustration following yesterday evening's announcement by Taoiseach, Micheal Martin that restrictions for the sector are to be reintroduced.

From tomorrow, Thursday, closing time for licensed premises will be at 12am with all customers having to vacate from said time.

It came as a major blow to some businesses including late night bars and nightclubs who had just reopened four weeks ago after almost 600 days of being closed to the public.

Leona Farrelly took the plunge and opened Jacks Bar in Kells during the summer in the middle of the pandemic, her risk paid off as business has been booming but she fears these new restrictions are going to have a huge impact on licensed premises across the board, she added:

"What is going to happen at 12 o'clock at night, what difference is it going to make? I'm heartbroken for anyone who is just recently opened because it is not easy getting up and running and then thinking how do I pay suppliers now. If a late bar or a nightclub is after getting a lot of stock in, how do you pay that back if you have not got the revenue stream coming in.

"Where do we go from here? At least when we were in lockdown we had the hope of the vaccine coming but this time what have we got, a booster? We have to keep going.

"I think it is throw something at the wall and see what sticks at this stage, I don't think it is going to work.

"You have suppliers and you have staff and no matter what your wages have to be paid. If you have a quiet Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you have still got to staff it and the fact that you have to be seated that you can't go to the bar, that you have to have extra staff on for table service, it is not helping, they are not thinking this whole strategy through."

Enda Blaney from Teach Na Teamhrach on the Trim Road says he believes that one rule should apply to all and that bars and restaurants should not have to bear the brunt of it. He added:

"It's a bit of a negative for us in what we were hoping was going to be a productive time with a bit of a Christmas rush, it has knocked things back.

"Unfortunately we have had cancellations already because people with parties booked are nervous, will people turn up to them with the heightened numbers and I suppose they are looking at the evening's entertainment being curtailed with a twelve o'clock curfew.

"We have had so many things in hospitality going back to the nine euro meal and for the like of ourselves we were allowed trade because we had a food business but that time we felt it was very unfair on the wet pubs who were being discriminated against.

"Now you are seeing it with the late night bar trade they were closed for longest of all and they are going to be hit the most by these restrictions again."

Enda says when he was abroad this year he noticed how other countries seemed to be managing better with implementing rules.

"What we would like to see is an even playing field in other European cities no matter where you go you are asked for the covid cert, be in a theatre or be it even an outdoor attraction, anywhere you went you were asked for your covid cert and it seemed to be that they managing it a little bit better.

"The one rule seemed to apply to all, whereas you would feel that hospitality has kind of been singled out that if people get a drink in their hand they are going to go mad or something, I don't see any evidence of it here anyway!

"People come in, they have no difficulty in showing the covid cert, they sit down, they have their meals, they have their drinks, be it 11pm, 12pm or 12.30am it is difficult to see the signifiance in it.

"If there are further lockdown restriction to come in are we going to be left sitting on that stock, what do we do with it, it has financial implications that you are tying up money in stock you can't sell. The uncertainty is probably biggest problem we have."