PARTY TIME AS SCOTLAND OPENS UP
REVELLERS in Scotland vowed to go out ‘every night’ after the easing of restrictions allowed nightclubs to reopen for the first time in over a year yesterday.
Many queued outside waiting for the venues to open at a minute past midnight as the nation marked its ‘Freedom Day’.
Luke Dunsmuir, 19, who was at the Polo Lounge in Glasgow, which describes itself as ‘Scotland’s premier LGBTQ nightclub’, said he was eager to get back.
He said he would be ‘out every night... you’ll be seeing my face everywhere’ over the next few weeks. Martin Stewart, 24, who went to the Boteco Do Brasil club in the city, said: ‘It’s been a long wait – I’ll be out till closing.’
The club’s managing director Luigi Aseni said being able to open again was ‘essential’ for his business. ‘We missed the music, the people and the atmosphere. We are all charged up, ready to jump back in,’ he said.
Meanwhile, the First Minister admitted she had ‘butterflies’ in her stomach as Scotland opened up, but said it was the ‘right moment’ to lift most legal restrictions yesterday.
Social distancing has ended north of the Border, with people able to meet up in unlimited numbers. Pubs and restaurants no longer have a curfew. Nicola Sturgeon told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: ‘There’s always going to be nervousness when we lift restrictions after such a long period... the virus hasn’t gone away, the pandemic is not over.’
While England celebrated Freedom Day on July 19, Scotland moved to its own ‘level zero’ of restrictions with social distancing in place.
It is now ‘beyond level zero’ but some rules continue, such as the mandatory use of masks.