Hindley Street goes quiet as virus restrictions hit hard, but sheesha bars still firing
Adelaide’s hospitality industry faces a worrying future as the coronavirus crisis sees large gatherings bannned. But how seriously were people taking it around Hindley St last night?
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It’s just ticked over 11pm on Friday night at the Adelaide Casino and punters are being handed a laminated number as they walk through the doors.
“It’s to keep the people below 100,” says a security guard, surrounded by hand sanitiser.
It’s not just a number but a ticket to an uncertain future for Adelaide’s hospitality industry in the age of COVID-19.
Inside the casino, pokie machines which would normally be rattling with coins have all but gone silent. Social distancing means that every second machine is offline.
Many of the gaming tables have been shut down, but for the 70 or so players still taking their chance, it’s business as usual. Although, it might not just be money these people are gambling with now.
The Sunday Mail toured Adelaide’s party hotspot on Hindley Street just hours after Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced tough measures forcing restaurants, pubs, clubs and other non-essential gatherings to significantly cap the number of patrons to prevent the virus spreading.
Neighbouring lane ways, normally heaving with revellers until the wee hours of the morning, are a ghost-town with several bars like the popular Electric Circus, Rocket Bar and Mr. Kims not opening at all. Others shut their doors well before midnight.
DJ Shannon Welk is spinning his last tune at Lady Burra Brewhouse Bar & Kitchen in Topham Mall at just after 10pm to a crowd of around a dozen people. The venue is licensed to 2am.
“Normally this place is packed with people straight after work until it’s closed, I’ve never seen it like this,” says Mr Welk whose business supplies DJs around metropolitan Adelaide.
“Every weekend, we have 37 events booked. This weekend we have three and I think after this weekend we won’t have any.”
The usually long queues outside popular nightclubs Red Square, The Woolshed and Dog and Duck, are non existent. Offers of free entry not enough to lure customers.
Downtown, which has a capacity of 2300 people closes its doors by 10.30pm.
The only outliers were Hindley St’s sheesha bars, which prove popular haunts.
However social distancing seems to be the last thing concerning some customers who share tobacco pipes as if all was normal.
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On Peel St - often used as a postcard location for the state’s tourism campaigns - hospitality workers Vanessa Rech, 25, Maeve Marryat, 23, and Chloe Borrelli, 24 are among a couple of dozen enjoying a quiet drink on the largely deserted strip.
“The thing I am most concerned about is the casual staff base,” says Ms Rech.
“Hospitality obviously employs a lot of the people in the state and especially a lot of the youth and most of those workers are casual staff. As much protection as we can give them and as much as the venues want to help, sometimes there is just no ability to keep staff and which is highly upsetting.”
Ms Rech echoes the sentiments of many other venue owners and business operators who want better communication from authorities. “If the government were to actually enforce a shut down, businesses would be able to claim insurance and workers would be able to be paid,” she says
“At the moment they have put restrictions on us and there’s a lot of mixed messages, so customers don’t really have an understanding of what’s going on.”
The only thing that seems certain is more uncertainty.