Bars and restaurantes reopen but call for fewer restrictions
The sectors most affected by the limitations keep up the pressure on the Government
BarcelonaAfter 38 days only serving takeaways, bars and restaurants are now serving food and drinks inside (at least 30% of the capacity) and outdoor seating is once again filling up with customers. Even so, the sectors most affected by the Government's restrictions -in addition to the restaurant sector, others such as commerce, sport and culture- are already calling for an acceleration of the recovery plan put in place by the Generalitat, in order to overcome the losses they have been suffering since the second wave of the pandemic began. The hospitality sector warns that, with limited capacity, it will still be difficult for many premises to become profitable, regardless of the furlough scheme.
"We have evidence that 20% of the premises will not reopen, and could be up to 30%," explained Jordi Roca to ACN, president of Sabadell's Restaurateur Guild. A recurring complaint of recent days is that many establishments do not have outdoor seating and have few tables, so that phase 1 leaves them pretty much the same. It won't be until phase 2 - starting 7 December, if all goes well - that they will be able to open with 50% of the capacity inside. Opening hours will be restricted by the 10pm to 6am curfew, meaning bars will have to be closed by 9,30 pm. That is why businesses have requested that it it be extended to 11 pm and, progressively, to 1 am, as they consider the timetable "insufficient and arbitrary".
The pressure to speed up the easing of restrictions is not limited to capacity. For bars and restaurants in coastal and mountain municipalities, the perimeter confinement at weekends is an even more important hindrance to business. Many live off weekend getaways customers from other parts of Catalonia, but despite the start of the easing of restrictions, they will not be able to serve this public from Friday to Sunday.
"We need immediate movement between provinces, without mobility measures are useless," Francesc Pintado, president of the Association of Hotel Businesses of Tarragona, told the ACN. Businesses claim that the 30% limit on capacity and the ban on moving to other towns and weekends will continue to harm the hotel industry, since the measures will only serve to "minimize costs", and in no case "earn money".
The commerce of some beach municipalities is experiencing a similar situation. Perimeter confinement is also punishing shops in towns like Platja d'Aro, which depend on tourism to keep the shutters up. Hotels add to this criticism of the Government, since the ban on weekend movement means they cannot profit from local tourists going off for a weekend after a disastrous summer with very few foreign tourists.
Nightlife of discontent
If there is one sector that has made its anger at being left out of the lifting of some restrictions evident, it is nightlife. The union already organised a protest on Saturday in the form of an open-air club in Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona. The Fercasarm employers' association insists that the nightclubs should be reopened, initially with tables and chairs.
The sector has its sights set on a very specific date, New Year's Eve, and proposes that the government apply a special timetable on this occasion. For the moment, the clientele is looking for alternatives and on Saturday the Guardia Urbana arrested 80 people at a party not wearing masks nor keeping social distance on the mountain of Montjuïc.
