MEMBERS of Bradford’s hospitality industry have told how new limits on who they can serve will prove “difficult to enforce”, with Bradford’s CAMRA chief warning it could be the “nail in the coffin for some”.
Under the new Tier 2 regulations for Bradford, people can only go to pubs, bars, cafes or restaurants with members of their household and their support bubble.
Peter Down, the chair of Bradford CAMRA, said changing messages and uncertainty has left many publicans feeling “unfairly targeted” by the latest local lockdown rules.
The chairman referred to data from Public Health England which shows that the hospitality industry is accountable for 5.18 per cent of cases since the week pubs reopened after lockdown.
Mr Down continued: “Nobody can plan for anything because the Government keeps changing their rules all the time.
“The whole thing about single households and bubbles inside, that is going to have a detrimental impact on pubs. They are finding it relatively easy to manage the rule of six as it is now because it works on a certain number of people and they can set out the tables, space the tables out accordingly.
“Trying to manage single households and social bubbles is going to be really difficult. It puts the pub workers in a really difficult position. How do they know people coming into their premises are a single household or a social bubble? What happens if a couple come in? What happens if it’s a group of students but they will look completely different?
“It’s going to put more and more people off going to the pub. Public Health England figures show five per cent of the covid positive cases are associated with hospitality. So once again hospitality is being unfairly targeted. I don’t think this is going to make any difference to the figures whatsoever.
“Pubs are going to go under with this. The publicans have tried really hard.
“I met with a few people over the weekend to get the feel for what was going on. It’s not just the pubs. I was speaking to a couple of the breweries as well and they have even more concerns. If the pubs do get closed down the Government have the support package but the local breweries will no reason to produce anything but they won’t get any compensation.
“The whole issue with the single households indoors is going to be the nail in the coffin of some pubs.”
Another pub with concern about the single household rule was The Record Café on North Parade in the city centre.
Owner Keith Wildman described how he had been anxiously awaiting the announcement over the weekend, earlier tweeting how he held back on ordering stock.
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Speaking to the Telegraph & Argus, Mr Wildman said: “Hospitality places are allowed to stay open but the not mixing of multiple households makes it really difficult and we’re really limiting who can come in. Trying to enforce that is particularly tough as we’re taking people’s word for it.
“Whatever rules they’re going to add, we’ll go by those but it’s good we can still carry on trading but it’s going to be very tough with the single households.”
