YLE said on Wednesday that it had received information that restaurants should stop offering alcohol at 5 pm and close their doors at 6 pm-7pm in the worst affected areas.
Timo LappiThe CEO of the Finnish Hospitality Association (Mara) told the broadcaster that he was furious if the decision continued to impose such severe restrictions on the industry.
“These are very strict and very surprising settings once the number of infections has dropped,” he said.
However, the end of the shutdown is good news for cafes and lunch restaurants. Lapland estimates on Wednesday that such institutions will reopen their doors as soon as possible, although legislation requires employees to be notified at least seven days before returning to work.
“I think they can get a deal with employees, and people will come to work earlier, even though legally the change schedules should be published a week before work starts,” he said.
Dinner restaurants, on the other hand, are unlikely to continue to operate if they are ordered to close at 5 p.m.
“Much of the dinner restaurants remain closed. You can’t even offer anyone a reasonable amount of working time with these restrictions. Maybe Saturday’s brunches work, but I doubt a lot more, ”Lapland said.
Last week, Parliament’s Committee on Health and Social Affairs expressed hope for lighter restrictions in the restaurant industry, stating that there should be a “very high” threshold for the adoption of a regulation that closes restaurants that mainly serve food before 9 pm.
“It will be interesting to hear the reasons for the opening hours that force the restaurants to close at 7 pm. It will be interesting to hear why the decision-makers deviated from the committee’s position,” Lapland commented.
He also stressed that the industry could lose more than half of its revenue if restrictions are introduced, as YLE announced.
The restrictions would apply to areas in the process of accelerating and transitioning to the epidemic, such as Kymenlaakso, Uusimaa and southwestern Finland. Mikko VirtanenThe division director of Kymen Seudun Osuuskauppa (KSO) said that easing the restrictions is welcome news.
“It sounds very good about the situation that we are able to open restaurants for at least a while and bring people back to work. This is overall welcome news,” he told YLE.
Some of KSO’s restaurants have sold takeaway food during the closure, but their sales have remained below one-fifth of the normal level, according to Virtanen. The cooperative plans to open at least some of its restaurants and two pubs to find out if customers were not blocked on Monday in Kymenlaakso at 6 p.m.
“It’s still to be seen if people will find their way to so-called daily refreshments,” he said.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
Source: The Nordic Page