Pubs and clubs across Australia are adjusting to new social distancing rules.
Sydney’s popular Souths Juniors clubs are still open at Kingsford, Malabar and Maroubra, but has told patrons to stay 1.5m away from each other in order to socially distance themselves.
The clubs cancelled their gaming machine promotions like Lucky Ducks and Friday Fiesta, but kept Bingo going on a tentative basis.
Souths Juniors, Sydney, is doing its best to comply with new social distancing restrictions to halt the spread of the deadly coronavirus
Clubs face fines of up to $55,000 if they hold an ‘unlawful gathering’ which would be having more than 100 people inside, with less than four square metres per person
While Souths kept its restaurants open, members were asked to make bookings to help with planning – so the club could keep up with the new coronavirus guidelines of having fewer than 100 people in an indoor space at a time.
Australia introduced stricter social distancing guidelines on Friday when Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the nation that people should stand between 1m and 1.5 metres away from each other wherever possible.
In addition, gatherings of fewer than 100 people indoors must have four square metres of space per person.
‘If you’ve got a room, if you’ve got a premises, if you’ve got a meeting room or something like that, that is 100 square metres, then you can have 25 people in that room,’ Mr Morrison said.
Gatherings of more than 100 people indoors are banned as are gatherings of more than 500 people outside.
Hosting an unlawful gathering can attract fines of up to $55,000.
Clubs and pubs have been advised to switch off every second gaming machine and to selectively remove tables, chairs and stools from dining rooms and the bar.
Souths also installed hand sanitiser throughout the clubs, and said it would clean public touch points such as lift buttons, gaming machine buttons and handrails many times a day.
‘Our contract cleaners will, in conjunction with our staff, provide increased and vigorous cleaning of all public areas of the clubs,’ Souths said in a statement posted to Facebook.
An empty restaurant at Circular Quay on Saturday. Restaurants, pubs and clubs have been advised to cut back their businesses to try to survive over the next six months
The Coogee Bay Hotel in Sydney still has its doors open, but pubs and clubs are struggling and the rules may change again in the next six months
In the nearby beachside suburb of Coogee, the Coogee Bay Hotel bravely put up a sign out saying it was open on Saturday.
In a message on their website the pub said it had adopted policies to respect the Government’s 1.5m social distancing request.
‘We’d like to urge our guests to play their part as well – that is, by regularly washing hands with soap or hand sanitizer and by choosing to refrain from visiting us if unwell and also respecting the need for social distancing,’ it said on its website.
The hotel has had to cancel its planned April events including Anzac Day and the Sneaky Sound System.
‘Apart from large organised events, we are still open for business,’ it said.
The hospitality industry is expected to be among the hardest hit by the coronavirus as people are encouraged to stay home and distance themselves from others to prevent the spread of the deadly virus.
ClubsNSW, which represents more than 1200 clubs, has warned its members to scale down their businesses, reducing costs to enable them to survive over the next six months.
It has also encouraged its members to contact their banks to seek deferred loan repayments for the next six months to try to keep them afloat.
‘Banks have implemented a fast-track approval process,’ ClubsNSW said on its website.
Hard-hit pubs and clubs were advised to seek payment deferral from the Australian Tax Office for GST, PAYG installments and income tax for its workforce.
The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (Cosboa) has warned that pubs, clubs and restaurants have already started closing – and sacking people – due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The UK has moved to simply shut down pubs, clubs and restaurants altogether.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has ordered licensed establishments, theatres, cinemas and gyms to close and said the government would cover workers’ wages.
‘I do accept that what we’re doing is extraordinary: we’re taking away the ancient, inalienable right of free-born people of the United Kingdom to go to the pub, and I can understand how people feel about that,’ Johnson said on Friday.
Johnson’s finance minister Rishi Sunak announced a government guarantee to pay the wages of workers to stabilise Britain’s economy for the first time in history, AAP reported.