Illegal for restaurants to charge for tap water

IF YOU were planning to ask your waiter for a glass of tap water after your expensive meal and alcohol, think again, for it might not be free.

Jeff Rosenberg, chairperson of Fedhasa Cape, the national trade association for the hospitality industry, implored hotels, guest houses and restaurants not to take advantage of Cape Town’s drought disaster to make money by charging for tap water.

Bomikazi Zide, 25, from Goodwood said that recently she was eating out at a restaurant at Canal Walk shopping centre with her boyfriend when he was told that the tap water was not free.

She said there were no signs or notices in the menu that said tap water was not free.

Rosenberg said what the restaurant did was not permitted.

“The current drought crisis is a serious situation and we need all industries and residents on board to avoid Day Zero.

“Charging for the consumption of tap water is not permitted according to the Department of Trade and Industry’s National Liquor Norms and Standards of 2015.”

A pensioner from Fish Hoek, Rosemary Milbank, said she went to Lekker Restaurant in Kalk Bay and was furious when they wanted to sell her tap water.

A manager at the restaurant said it only sold bottled water, which costs R15.