It’s ‘madness’ that people can get a takeaway but can’t eat it outside premises, says Pilot Bar’s Tommy
WITH word being awaited today, Thursday, as to the plan for re-opening of businesses this summer, the owner of a gastropub in Enniscrone is hoping there will be some clarity for premises like his. At the weekend, Tommy Battle, owner of the Pilot Bar, described as madness a situation where people can buy takeaway food from his premises, but cannot sit down and eat it at picnic tables he has outside.
He has to have his picnic tables taped off becaue of the fact that even outdoor dining at premises is still prohibited. “I had to to come along with what essentially is CSI crime scene tape and tape off all the benches. Firstly, it looks ridiculous and, secondly, it seems it has to be done because I don’t have the authority to let people sit down and eat there,” Tommy told Ocean Fm yesterday, Wednesday.
Tommy Battle said it was great to see the sunshine and people on the beach in Ennicrione again enjoying themselves last weekend.
But he said that with the extra crowds coming to the village the facilities need to be allowed to open to deal efficiently with it. He said: “You would probably be talking in the thousands the number of people coming to the village because now they can travel outside their 5km zone. 20km from Enniscrone is a lot of people and from the whole of county Sligo.”
He said that he found himself in a situation at the bar where they have seven benches outside and the potential for more than 40 people to sit down because they are serving takeaway pizza and burritos at the weekends.
But, he said: “People are welcome to come up and get the food but seemingly they are not welcome to sit down on the benches because of the restrictions that we are under because we cannot provide for outdoor dining. There’s no clarity on it – that’s the problem.”
He said he didn’t see the issue with somebody grabbing a pizza and sitting down on a bench in the open air.
Tommy said: “It’s not a beer garden. It’s not enclosed and there is no roof on it. I don’t see what the issue with that is really so long as it’s monitored and supervised, which we are doing.”
He said the believed that they had done a good job when people were sitting indoors last year and he believes that “we could do an equally good job with people sitting outdoors before we get the green light to open indoors again”.
Tommy also pointed out that they can’t even let people come inside and use the toilets because of an insurance issue as there are no staff in the bar.
“If we had outdoor dining we could have more staff back at work and we could have staff to supervise the toilets,” he said.