Dining out back on the menu
door again to customers last Thursday morning. Licensee Danny Murnane was happy to unlock the doors to allow 10 people at any given times in the bar and in the dining room and said the hotel’s decking area could accommodate 45 people under the distancing rules.
He said that the drive through bottle shop and provision of takeaway meals during the lockdown had enabled the business to “tread water”.
Drouin’s Royal Hotel opened on Thursday offering meals indoors and at their outdoor area on the first-floor balcony.
The Drouin Family Hotel re-opened on Saturday with 20 indoors and some others catered for on decking.
The Country Club, Downtowner, Drouin Family Hotel and Club Hotel at Warragul – the four licenced pokies machine venues in the shire – have been given no indication when their gaming rooms may re-open.
It might be two months, four months, we don’t know, Mr Hodge said.
Not happy with the limitations on the number of patrons allowed in clubs in regional areas is Country Clubs Victoria, the organisation that represents venues such as the Country Club and Downtowner at Warragul.
There are no medical or enforcement grounds when the average regional infection case load is well below the Premier’s stated safe threshold, president Leon Weigard claimed.
Also the Business Support and Adaption package announced by the Premier will do little to help clubs that have been financially devastated, he said.