Gympie’s Brown Jug cafe dodges fine for breaching Covid mandates

A popular cafe in the heart of the Gympie CBD, which publicly declared it would not be forcing its staff to be vaccinated as per state-wide mandates, has now been busted breaching the rules.

A Gympie cafe, that publicly declared it would not force its staff to be vaccinated, has dodged being fined thousands of dollars for breaching the Covid mandates that came into effect on December 17.

The Brown Jug cafe in Mary Street was serving only takeaway food and drinks on Wednesday after it was warned by Gympie police on Tuesday.

All of its chairs were stacked up on the tables and owner Kuchu Ekanayake was telling customers he would be forced to hire a new team.

He refused to comment on what had happened, other than to blame local media for bringing attention to his pro-choice stance on the mandates. CLICK HERE FOR MORE DETAILS

Mr Ekanayake said online it was up to his staff if they wanted to get the vaccine or not.

A QPS representative said Gympie Police had conducted compliance checks at several local businesses on Tuesday which included providing education and/or warnings about compliance checks with CHO direction. Gympie police confirmed the Brown Jug had been issued a warning.

The mandate is being enforced by Queensland Police, and businesses can be fined $6892, and individuals $1378.

Queensland had 186 new Covid cases overnight on December 22, the largest spike since the beginning of the pandemic.

On December 22, there were 22 active cases in the Sunshine Coast region.

A QPS spokesman told The Gympie Times police would “continue to conduct patrols of popular entertainment and dining precincts, particularly over the first week of the new direction (and) take an educative approach to compliance around COVID-19 measures, however, if blatant breaches are detected, we will take action.“