HOTELS RESUME WITH NEW GUIDELINES

The few guests who ventured out to hotels and restaurants, which opened their doors on Monday after being shut from March 24, had a new experience.

Hotel Sha Ghouse removed 28 tables from the dining hall and retained only eight to meet the social distancing norms. Temperature screening was made mandatory for all the clients, waiters have been instructed to maintain standard operating procedures, Mohammed Irfan, proprietor, told Deccan Chronicle.

He said that many of his staff comprised of guest workers who had returned to their native places. The hotel was short of staff.

Restaurants stuck to the guidelines in encouraging takeaways, ensuring physical distancing norms and asking waiters to wear gloves and masks and to sanitise the premises.

Small hoteliers will find these norms burdensome financially, said Md Ibrahim Khan of Al Madina Hotel. “We target mostly the middle class and lower middle class. Before the lockdown, our hotel used to be filled will customers, now with the social distancing norms it will be difficult to accommodate so many of them,” he said.

Nanking, a Chinese restaurant in Secunderabad, has placed a bowl of boiling water to resterilise forks and spoons. As a part of social distancing, clients are requested to serve themselves. The tables were sanitised after the cliends left, Satish Kumar, senior manager, said.

A couple said of their experience: “Eating in a restaurant after the long lockdown giving us a feel of the new normal.”