Posted: Wed 2nd Dec 2020

JD Wetherspoon Chairman – “not viable” to open it’s pubs in Wales from Friday

News and Info from Deeside, Flintshire, North Wales
This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Dec 2nd, 2020

JD Wetherspoon will close its pubs in Wales when new restrictions on hospitality come into force on Friday the chain’s chairman has said.

First Minister Mark Drakeford announced on Monday that restaurants, pubs and bars will be banned from selling alcohol and will have to close at 6pm.

The fresh measures being introduced in Wales are aimed at stemming the spread of the COVID-19.

The new restrictions will come into force just a month after the end of the the Wales wide firebreak as cases begin to rise again.

Mr Drakeford said without tighter restrictions, there could be between 1000 and 1700 “preventable deaths”, according to scientific modelling.

The hospitality industry has reacted angrily to the new measures in Wales.

The 6pm curfew and ban on serving alcohol on all 3,227 pubs in Wales will “destroy the sector,” Emma McClarkin, Chief Executive of the British Beer & Pub Association said.

Ms McClarkin said: “Evenings are the key trading period for pubs and enjoying a beer, with or without a meal, is one of life’s simple pleasures – forcing pubs to close at 6pm and banning alcohol sales all but closes them down in reality.”

“When you factor in that December, with the festive season, is the most important time of the year for pub goers and our sector, this really couldn’t come at a worse time.”

JD Wetherspoon operates three pubs in Flintshire, the Central Hotel in Shotton, the Gold Cape in Mold and the Market Cross in Holywell.

The chain’s founder and chairman Tim Martin said they, along with all its pubs in Wales will close on Friday when the new country wide restrictions come into force as it won’t be “viable” to keep them open.

Wetherspoon’s operates around 50 pubs in Wales, Mr Martin told BBC Radio Wales: “We’ll close, it won’t be viable to open, we tried it in Scotland when they brought in similar rules to Wales for a few weeks but it was ruinously expensive.”

He said the difficulty in Wales as in England, is the “four different sets of regulations which have applied to pubs restaurants licensed premises in the last few weeks.”

“If you can imagine the impact on small businesses in particular but actually all businesses with staff trying to absorb these regulations then make them work in a licensed trade atmosphere to explain to customers, it’s an impossible burden.”

Mr Martin said: “Rules are being made by people who have never run a business, in the UK they’re being made by [people] heavily influenced by a set of academics who for all their brilliance in certain areas, haven’t run a business, and they don’t understand the extraordinary difficulty.”

He said, “we should stick to what’s happening in Sweden, they’ve got two rules two golden rules, one is social distancing, that works if you don’t get too close to someone you don’t get it and they’ve proven that.”

“The second is hygiene hand washing etc and all those rules are implemented in pubs, with very good results, this new Puritanism in Wales and elsewhere is madness is
economic madness.”

The first minister said the restrictions on hospitality will be reviewed on December 17.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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