Eat, drink and be distant
PUBS AND RESTAURANTS OPEN ON SATURDAY. SO HOW DO THEY STAY SAFE? ROSIE MURRAY-WEST ASKS THE EXPERTS
JULY 4 may not be a traditional British celebration, but this year we will be having our very own Independence Day, thanks to a significant easing of the coronavirus lockdown restrictions. The changes, announced by Boris Johnson, mean that pubs and restaurants can open, and the public can stay in hotels, bed and breakfast premises and campsites. Cinemas and theme parks, too, will throw open their doors for the first time in over three months and we can even have that long-anticipated post-lockdown haircut.
It is no wonder British businesses have greeted the news with immense excitement. ‘This has been an incredibly difficult time, but there is now some light at the end of the tunnel,’ says Mike Cherry, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) national chairman. ‘Thousands of restaurants, hairdressers, pubs, hotels and campsites will be breathing a huge sigh of relief.’
But although these businesses can reopen, there will still be restrictions on how they operate, and they must adhere to strict rules around distancing and cleaning. This will bring an increased burden for already cash-strapped businesses, with more than one in four FSB members saying reopening costs are in excess of £1,000.
For small businesses, reopening success will depend on creative solutions, sensible accounting and often keeping a side business going while waiting for customers to regain their confidence. Here’s how to make it work:
GET TO GRIPS WITH THE GUIDANCE
The announcement from government drops the distance requirements for those in shops, schools, hotels and restaurants from two metres to ‘one metre plus’. That means that tables in restaurants and pubs can be one metre apart, as long as other mitigating measures are taken such as avoiding face-to-face seating, installing protective screens and providing additional hand sanitiser.
Mike, at the FSB, says that the new rules will be particularly important for small businesses.
‘Small businesses tend to be in small premises. They don’t have wide aisles or big car parks to help them manage queues, so the two-metre rule has proven to be especially prohibitive.’
In order to reopen, businesses must prove they are Covid-safe, which usually involves doing a risk assessment. There are guidelines on how to do this on the gov.uk website, including reconfiguring tables, cleaning toilets and putting up screens.
‘If you have five or more employees you’ll need to do a Covid-19 risk assessment,’ says James Lintern, co-founder of staff management software provider RotaCloud. ‘A risk