NSW Covid road map slammed as being too slow for hospitality

The state’s road map out of the pandemic has been slammed as moving at a snail’s pace with businesses and the tourist-starved regions left confused and angry.

The state’s road map out of the pandemic has been slammed as moving at a snail’s pace with businesses and the tourist-starved regions left confused and angry.

Travel to regional NSW has been pushed back from having 70 per cent of the population double-vaxxed to the 80 per cent threshold while brides have been left in tears with a cap on wedding numbers to just 50 participants until the 80 per cent vaccination rate is hit.

Group bookings for Melbourne Cup lunches and early Christmas parties have been cancelled because of the continuing cap on 20 people per group dining together.

Small Business Australia executive director Bill Lang slammed the “glacial movement to opening up”.

Businesses are already seeing cancellations for group bookings after a 20 person cap was belatedly announced. .

“Our political leaders need to understand that business owners and their staff cannot continue to wait,” he said.

“Many have been unable to trade for 19 months.

“Small Business Australia is urging governments to allow fully vaccinated businesses to trade with those who are fully vaccinated. If it is safe for them to do so at 80 per cent, then why is it unsafe for them to trade with each other now?”

The beleaguered hospital­ity sector was also continuing to feel the brunt of the slow approach to normality with the Australian Hotels Association’s John Green highlighting the crippling effect the 25 per cent indoor capacity limits at 70 and 80 per cent would have on smaller venues.

The cap on 20 people per group dining in has already had a “massive impact” with cancellations, Mr Green, NSW Director of Liquor and Policing, said.

“Venues were taking group bookings for Melbourne Cup lunches, early corporate Christmas celebrations, and many have been scrapped.” Indoor hospitality now has to wait until December 1 to have 50 per cent capacity, he said.

The comments came as Ms Berejiklian yesterday def­ended her road map, while still labelling some elements as being “conservative”.

“We’ve made decisions based on what is safe for our citizens, and we’re happy to lead the way,” she told the ABC yesterday.

That was cold comfort for Navarro venues senior managing director Giovannino Navarra, who said the flow-on effect was already causing chaos for wedding bookings.

“The phone calls coming in from the brides, they’re crying they have to move their dates six or seven months down the track,” he said.

Mr Navarro said remaining restrictions, including the 50-person cap on weddings until 80 per cent vaccination is reached, could lead to ­operators missing out on bookings until next year, with few weddings booked around Christmas.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian has defended her controversial road map. Picture: Getty Images

In the bush, the delay to regional travel has heaped more pain on businesses ­reliant on tourism.

Angela Myles, vice-president of Business Mudgee, told The Telegraph: “It definitely will make things tougher.

“Mudgee as a region is very reliant on tourism. A lot of our business and industry completely rotates around tourists, from Sydney in particular,” Ms Myles said.

She said businesses in the bush were torn between being safe and surviving without tourists for another month.

Nightclubs are also facing a tough test when they reopen on December 1: they will only be allowed one reveller for every four square metres, compared to two square ­metres for pubs and clubs.

Esna Lee, a co-owner of late night Cronulla institution The Vinyl Room, said the rules will prevent her from opening the doors altogether.

“I can’t open with the four square metre rule – that means 25 per cent capacity for me, so I can’t even afford to pay security guards for the queues (outside the club),” she said.

She said nightclubs just wanted to be treated the same as other hospitality venues.

Co-owner of The Vinyl Room, Esna Lee, says square-metre caps means she won't be able to open up her nightclub until December 1st. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

Sex worker advocate and activist Julie Bates and Ash Burgess, who owns three brothels. Picture: Richard Dobson

Even brothel owners are bewildered after being classed as “personal services” last year and able to open along with hairdressers and beauty parlours — but are now redefined as “intimate services” and unable to reopen until December 1. “What is the new health imperative or the science behind redefining us as an intimate services and leaving us unable to open until December 1 along with nightclubs?” sex worker advocate Julie Bates said.

When Melbourne hits 80 per cent full vaccinations the city will allow sex service premises to have a capacity of up to 150 people.

“So to clar­ify, I can go and get a tattoo with someone in close proximity to my face, I can have my eyelash extensions done and I can even take 10 of my favourite people back to my house but what I can’t do is enter a sex services premises regardless of any vaccination status,” brothel owner Ash Burgess said.

Infectious diseases expert Professor Peter Collignon said a slower approach to opening up freedoms was better but that depending on how vaccination levels and Covid infection rates progress, the dates for opening up could be brought forward.

“There could be signs that instead of December 1, we can open in the middle of November,” he said.