Boris Johnson is set to announce today that pubs and bars will have to close at 10pm from Thursday, and offer table service only.
The measures come as the government looks to stem a rise in covid cases across the UK. The Guardian is reporting that police will be handed powers to issue £1,000 fines and make arrests to enforce two-metre social distancing.
The prime minister will attend a cabinet meeting this morning, address Parliament, then, presumably, address the nation.
Reaction from across the pub industry has been swift, as yet another block to recovery is envisaged. The Campaign for Pubs, the national grassroots campaign to promote, support, and protect pubs, has written an open letter on behalf of the nation’s publicans and their families to the prime minister. It asks the government to understand that thousands of people and families are reliant on pubs for a living, and that another lockdown or national curfew would be disastrous for those people and not just businesses.
Publicans are being asked to support the letter by emailing email campaign@campaignforpubs.org.uk with their name, pub name, and location, and ‘Sign letter to PM’ as the subject.
Paul Crossman, chair of the campaign and licensee of three pubs in York, said: “This is a pivotal and very worrying moment for our pub industry. The decisions that the government takes now will be the difference between make or break for many of our much-loved pubs up and down the country.
“This is especially so for many thousands of independently run pubs, including those leased from large corporate freeholders, which are operated by small businesses and families from within their own community.
‘A 10pm curfew will devastate our sector during an already challenging environment for pubs’
“These pubs have worked tirelessly to re-open and to adhere to guidance in order to serve their communities safely, providing once again a much needed measure of community cohesion. Following the summer lockdown these small businesses have no reserves to survive further closure, or other restrictions such as a national curfew.
“If the Government decides to take further such measures, then additional financial support will be crucial to avoid a decimation of our treasured national pubs, and real hardship for those who have worked so hard to help them survive this crisis so far.”
Emma McClarkin, chief executive of the British Beer and Pub Association, said: “We take our responsibilities in helping to curb the spread of covid-19 incredibly seriously, and pubs have adapted well to the new normal over the past few months and will continue to do so, creating safe environments for socialising.
“A curfew is particularly heartbreaking for those pubs in areas where infection rates remain under control. There seems to be little available evidence that pubs, with their strict adherence to government guidelines, are unsafe, so we are unsure that this blanket measure will make a major difference.
“Make no mistake, a 10pm curfew will devastate our sector during an already challenging environment for pubs. Pubs were struggling to break even before today and these latest restrictions will push some to breaking point. Removing a key trading hour on top of fragile consumer confidence and the reduced capacity pubs already face will put thousands more pubs and jobs at risk. During the current circumstances every hour of trading it crucial to the survival of pubs — for many this curfew will render their businesses unviable.
‘We are extremely concerned about the unfounded anti-pub and restaurant rhetoric coming from the government’
“The government now needs to act fast in putting together a comprehensive support package to ensure that thousands of pubs don’t close their doors for good because of this curfew. We need an immediate sector-specific furlough scheme to save the hundreds of thousands of jobs that pubs support, extended VAT cuts and business rates holiday and a substantial cut to the rate of beer duty in the autumn Budget. Only a comprehensive support package like this will save thousands of pubs and many more pub jobs.”
Announcing trading firgures for 2019, Tom Davies, chief executive of Brakspear parent company JT Davies & Son, said: “Since July, trading has been better than we had feared and we are grateful to the government for its support. We are, however, extremely concerned about the unfounded anti-pub and restaurant rhetoric coming from the government in relation to the rise in covid cases.
“We have proved to be a covid-responsible industry doing our best to keep unemployment down and get the economy moving again.”
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said: “These restrictions will come as another crushing blow for many hospitality businesses struggling to recover, so it’s crucial these new rules are applied with flexibility. A hard-close time is bad for business and bad for controlling the virus — we need to allow time for people to disperse over a longer period.
“Table service has been widely adopted in some parts of the sector since re-opening, but it is not necessary across all businesses, such as coffee shops. It is hard to understand how these measures are the solution to fighting the disease when government data shows that just 5% of infections out of the home are related to hospitality.”
