Implementing the passport

Firstly, it strikes me that there is a spot of after-the-event rationalisation to explain the 50 capacity rule and the exclusion of bars and cafeterias. It’s as if this exclusion had been intended (if only on a let’s-see-how-things-go basis), when that was certainly not how it appeared.

If it had been intended, then why did the government spend much of last Saturday seeking to refute associations’ observations that the decree text applied only to restaurants. As to implementation, there is the situation whereby hotel guests are expected to present the passport each time they wish to enter a hotel restaurant or similar. The passport is presented when checking in, say hoteliers. Why should it then be required again ... and again? It’s an inconvenience.

Then there is the fact that certain restaurants have apparently been removing tables in order to bring their capacity below 50 and so not have to require the passport. The government says they can’t do this. Licences establish capacities and licences have to be stuck to. If not, fines can be imposed.

I get that there are licences, but if a restaurant owner chooses to remove tables (and thereby potentially lose custom rather than gain it), should he or she not be cut a bit of slack?

Hospitality has had enough to put up with as it is.