Fears over lockdown ‘disaster’ for pubs
THE landlord of a historic Derby pub says another lockdown would be a disaster for the city and the hospitality sector.
Alan Pickersgill, joint licensee of The Brunswick Inn in Railway Terrace, said pubs were being used as an “easy option” to blame for the new sharp rise in coronavirus cases.
Mr Pickersgill spoke out just after leading scientific experts Professor Chris Whitty and Sir Patrick Vallance told the nation in a TV address significant action would be needed or else the virus would go “out of control” in the coming weeks.
Yesterday the UK’s coronavirus alert level was upgraded from 3 to 4, meaning transmission is “high or rising exponentially”, its chief medical officers said.
Boris Johnson is due to make a statement to MPs today on what the Government plans to do.
It has reportedly been considering a shutdown of the hospitality and leisure sectors.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak, however, is said to have impressed on the Prime Minister the devastating impact this would have on jobs.
Another idea that officials have looked at is for pubs to shut at 10pm.
Earlier this year, at the peak of the coronavirus outbreak, hotels, pubs and restaurants were ordered by the Government to close.
Pubs reopened in July and are slowly finding their feet again.
Mr Pickersgill, whose business is one of the city’s best-known pubs, said his plans to host a beer festival in October, which he is setting up partly to mark newly restored confidence within the industry following this difficult year, would be in jeopardy if the
Government decided to shut down the sector again. He said: “It’s all very depressing. If there is another lockdown it will be a disaster.
“We have started planning a socially distanced beer festival and people have reserved tables to come to it. It’s the longest-serving beer festival in this county.
“It (lockdown) will mean all that beer we’ve ordered will go straight down the drain.
“We have been improving in turnover up until about ten days ago when they started introducing new measures. Pubs up and down the country have done so much to make their places safe and have delivered.
“All this would knock confidence in the industry again. If there was a curfew to shut at 10pm it wouldn’t matter to us as we are not a late-night venue but the virus does not stop spreading at 10pm at night - so what difference will that do?”
Mr Pickersgill believes pubs are not the problem behind the second wave of coronavirus cases. He said: “It seems to me that we are not finding the perpetrators behind the virus, we are just blanketly blaming it all on pubs. It’s the easy option.
“If pubs are the problem then the spike would have come at the start of August.
“Pubs are not causing the problem. They haven’t hit where the problem is, where it is people’s household gatherings.
“It would be criminal if there was a lockdown for another two or four weeks and close pubs. You would not send someone to prison if they were innocent - it’s just barmy.”
Bosses at East Midlands Chamber said another lockdown would be “catastrophic” for the economy.
Scott Knowles, chief executive at
the organisation, said: “Clearly, the Government has some very tough decisions to make in terms of how to keep the pandemic under control and we fully appreciate there is a delicate balance to be struck between economic and public health.
“But the simple reality is that another national lockdown would be catastrophic to the economic recovery of the country. The scientists have suggested four actions for combating risk, but a lockdown should not be added to this list.”