... and look what we’ve become
THE 10pm curfew was branded a ‘farce’ yesterday after it led to crowds of customers spilling out on to the streets and on to public transport at the same time.
Business owners accused the Government of ignoring ‘simple logic’ by forcing people out of safe venues that had social distancing measures in place to create dangerous pinch points.
They criticised the ‘draconian measures’, which saw police turning up at restaurants and making diners leave without finishing their meals.
Photographs showed officers and council workers patrolling the streets and peering into pub and restaurant windows to ensure businesses were complying with the curfew, which came into effect on Thursday.
Boris Johnson ordered all pubs and restaurants in England to close at 10pm and made table service mandatory. The new measures saw swathes of people congregating in the centre of cities including London, Leeds and Newcastle as they were turfed out of venues at the same time.
Kirsty Lewis, 24, from north-west London, posted a video of the moment people left pubs and restaurants on Oxford Street in central London with the caption: ‘10pm curfew just meant everyone rolling out on to the streets and on to the Tubes at the same time and it was the busiest I’ve seen central London in months’.
Commenting on the footage, broadcaster Piers Morgan said: ‘What a farce. This government can’t even get a curfew right.’
Miss Lewis added: ‘I think most people were socially distanced, or at least trying to be, from other groups – but as you can see in the video that got a bit tricky and was a problem as they all tried to crowd on to the Tube.
‘I know that a lot of people were discussing going back to their houses or flats for more drinks instead.
‘The owner of the restaurant I went to seemed very upset having to turf people out, which will have obviously limited his income.’ Yesterday business leaders pleaded for ‘a drinkingup time’ to stop dangerous pinch points and a grace period for customers to finish their meals.
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, said: ‘A hard 10pm curfew was always going to lead to pinch points of customers leaving pubs en masse. We made that point to the Government and called for a drinkingup time to be included in the regulations to reduce the risk of a log jam.
‘The first night under the curfew highlighted the problem with taking away staggered closing times and forcing everyone out onto the streets together.’ Julian Bartlett, of Hakata Ramen + Bar in Bermondsey in south-east Lonrestaurants don, said police turned up at his restaurant at 9.50pm and told customers to pay and leave in ten minutes.
‘I respect the curfew and I understand the police were doing their job but the whole thing seems heavyhanded,’ he said. ‘Without a reasonable grace period allowing customers to finish their meal it will deter people from dining out and destroy the viability of our businesses.’ Will Beckett, the co-founder of Hawksmoor which has in London, Manchester and Edinburgh, said: ‘We have had feedback that “it is safer in here [our restaurant] than out there”.
‘My view is that if you want to accept that people are socialising it’s much better that they do that in restaurants or pubs which are regulated and Covid secure. The hospitality industry is not the problem, it’s the curfew.’
Some establishments pledged to open earlier to make up for lost hours. The Angel of Bow pub in east London announced on social media that it would be operating on ‘Covid Savings Time’ and opening earlier.
Similarly Popworld bars in York and Liverpool announced that they would be open from 4pm on Fridays and 3pm on Saturdays, and offering 50 per cent off deals until 8pm.
A health minister yesterday suggested that ‘late-night intimacy’ is one reason for the 10pm closing time.
Lord Bethell said: ‘If a hospitality venue like a pub has good contact tracing when you arrive, socially-distanced seating, table service and booking then there is no reason why that should present a threat.
‘But not all pubs abide by those disciplines. Mass crowding either inside or outside and late-night intimacy, mixed groups, this is where the disease spreads. And that is why we have cracked down including through the 10pm curfew.’
‘Rolling out on to the streets’