‘IT’LL BE A BLOODBATH IF WE DON’T GET HELP’
VENUES FACE ‘RENT APOCALYPSE’, SAYS OWNER
RESTAURANTS and bars face a ‘rent apocalypse’ this month as operators plead for more help.
Hospitality businesses have been shuttered up since lockdown was imposed in March, and have been told they will not reopen again until July 4 at the earliest.
The Government rolled out a package of support for the sector at the time, including a three-month rent moratorium protecting commercial tenants from eviction.
But the scheme expires on June 30, leaving operators who still have little to no income fearing for their future.
Businesses also face having to reopen with drastically reduced capacities – and revenues – to comply with the UK’s 2m distancing rule, which is currently under review to see whether it could be safely dropped to the World Health Organisation’s 1m standard.
Popular Manchester tapas restaurant Lunya has already been forced to close permanently as a result of the crisis, and an industry lobbyist has warned a ‘bloodbath’ could be looming across the UK’s high streets.
Hospitality Union founder Jonathan Downey, who runs London street food market business Street Feast and had been planning to open three Manchester venues, has been leading calls for a ninemonth ‘national time out’ on rents to help the hospitality sector survive.
He said the ‘resourceful’ industry would find a way to cope with whatever distancing measures they face when they reopen.
“But we can’t say the same for the end-of-month rent apocalypse,” he said.
“We won’t be able to manage our way around that with a tape measure and some perspex. Not a chance.
“Next week another quarter’s rent is due. That’s on top of the unpaid arrears from the March quarter.
“Two weeks tomorrow is the day the locks get changed and landlords start to repossess premises, unless cash-strapped tenants pay half a year’s rent having been forced to close by Government order for almost four months.
“It’s an impossible situation for far too many of us.”
Jonathan’s National Time Out scheme proposes that commercial rents, and the debt and interest payments secured on those premises, are pushed to the back end of leases and loan terms, with rental starting again in January 2021.
He is also calling for more support for landlords, adding that a ‘massive pyramid of profit rests on the success on hospitality.’
Without some form of rent relief, he says 50 per cent of businesses won’t reopen, putting 2 million jobs on the line.
But he is hopeful that the moratorium may be extended, after a parallel ban on residential evictions was extended for another two months.
“Government cannot leave us hanging like this,” he said.
“They will not. They must, they will, extend the lease forfeiture moratorium beyond 30 June.
“We just need them to announce it. They reacted quickly and effectively when they first brought in this essential measure back in March – 13 days from the idea to UK law.
“There is already a legislative provision to extend it, they know there’ll be a bloodbath if they don’t and some extra time will enable more deals to be done.
“It will happen. If they did it this week, thousands more of us could be making plans to reopen rather than for redundancy and insolvency.”