Latest Balearic Covid-19 restrictions unfair blow to restaurants, sector associations claim

NEW restrictions aimed at stemming a recent surge in Covid-19 cases on Spain’s Balearic Islands deal an unfair blow to restaurants, according to sector associations.
The new measures announced by the Balearic regional government on August 26, and published in the BOIB Balearic Island Official Bulletin today Friday August 28, include reducing restaurant maximum capacity to 50 per cent, both in interior dining areas and on outdoor terraces.
There is also now a complete ban on smoking on terraces.
The presidents of the restaurant business arms of the CAEB Balearic Business Association Confederation and the PIMEM Mallorca Small and Medium-Sized Business Federation, Alfonso Robledo and Eugenia Cusi, told Spanish press the measures punished restaurants when they were not the source of outbreaks of the virus.
Robledo described the measures as “outrageous.”
Cusi meanwhile argued that “instead of transmitting confidence, the message from bars and restaurants complying with the measures creates the opposite effect.”
The CAEB president also criticised the restriction already in place which makes it compulsory for bars and restaurants to close by 1am. He maintained the move had proved to be “ineffective” and only encouraged gatherings in public places to drink and party.