In yet another blow to the hospitality industry, the Government has announced that all customers at pubs, restaurants and cafes must provide contact details (either written or via the NHS Test and Trace app) on entry. Previously, only one member of each group had to provide details. Doing so was voluntary (staff were only asked to “encourage” customers to provide their details). But the new guidelines state that those who will not provide their details must be “refuse[d] entry”. BBC News has the story.
New rules to help pubs, cafes and restaurants reopen outdoors safely in England on April 12th have sparked anger from industry groups.
All customers will have to sign in on entry, not just one member of the group like before. It is also unclear whether payment at the bar will be permitted. …
Under the new guidance, every customer aged 16 and over will have to check in to NHS Test and Trace before entering a venue, or give their contact details to staff.
Pubs and restaurants must take “reasonable steps” to stop people who won’t comply from coming in, or they could face fines.
Carl Ford, an accountant based in Tamworth, told the BBC he was frustrated and confused by the rules.
“I feel like it’s almost like going back to school where I have to sign in and out,” he said.
“I don’t understand why I have to do this in a restaurant or pub, but I don’t need to do this in a supermarket where you have a free for all. People don’t have to sign in and they can pick up fruit with their hands.” …
In a joint statement, UK Hospitality, the British Beer & Pub Association and the British Institute of Innkeeping said the rules would add “more confusion and inconvenience for customers and staff”.
When pubs and restaurants opened last summer, customers were “encouraged” to provide their contact details, but to do so was not mandatory (see official guidance below).
These guidelines have, however, since been updated: venues must now take “reasonable steps to refuse entry to those who refuse to check in or provide contact details”. Compliance is no longer a personal choice. It is mandatory.
Venues which do not force their customers to provide details will themselves face “financial penalties“.
After having been shut for almost a whole year, how are pubs and restaurants expected to survive if potential customers decide that – because of the new overbearing rules – it is easier and more enjoyable to drink with friends in their back gardens?
The BBC News report is worth reading in full.
Discussion
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As we know from recent events, as shown by the fine example of government ministers, it is indeed perfectly acceptable to lie, so we can go forth in the knowledge that giving false contact details is the right thing to do. However I believe the best route is to refuse to participate in the Checkpoint Society & boycott any businesses that comply with this nonsense. Whilst I feel some sympathy with business owners they as an industry need to stand up and be counted. If they wish to do the government’s dirty work they will have to pay the price.
Texas and Florida are doing just fine and they have scrapped all the lock down and mask b*****ks.
Why? What logical reason is there for doing this?
Why any requirement for outdoor T&T ?
Rereading the FAQ in, t me at least, the increasingly wise Great Barrington Declaration, it says “Contact tracing does not work for widely spread diseases such as annual influenza, pre-vaccine measles, COVID-19, or, by definition, against any pandemic.” Ergo, once the virus is endemic, contact tracing is a phenomenal waste of time and money. We don’t need to track down individual new cases of the virus, It is all around us.
Why the does the UK government think this makes any sense? Why is it only 70 Conservative MP’s protesting? Does no one know that the virus will abate of its own accord as we approach summer.? Leave safety precautions and restrictions up to individual choice
“After having been shut for almost a whole year, how are pubs and restaurants expected to survive…”
Er… they’re not? After all, why would the PTB want people to go out, have fun, drink with friends? They might swap notes on their experiences, and conclude the government is out of control. Can’t have that.
If I do go anywhere where I need to sign in I shall just lie, as I did last time. Oh, and I ditched the smartphone, and got a £10 throwaway and anonymous SIM card instead for trips out.
Play the bastards at their own game.
It’s a gradual (?) turning of the screw. Hancock & Co were okay with last summer’s signing in system but now we are virtually covid-free they want to bully us more by making all their pathetic ideas mandatory. I suppose they think they have now moved the “Overton window” so far they can do what ever pleases their despotic desires.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/01/tory-donor-lobbied-minister-to-speed-up-his-65m-ppe-deal
pigs in troughs.
Why are so many people reacting as though this is even remotely acceptable? I won’t be going to any pub, cafe restaurant or other venues that try to enforce this. Simple. If people actually stand up to this it’s unworkable. And so it should be. This is a crime. That’s all there is to it. Is even North Korea this mad?
They want pubs to fail, they are making it almost impossible for them to operate to full capacity and bringing in rules that will alienate a lot of potential customers. Many people have got used to drinking and socializing at home and having to jump through a lot of hoops to sit in a freezing cold ‘beer garden’ (which is quite likely to be a few chairs on the pavement outside next to a busy road) will not exactly entice them back. Even though I love a visit to the pub I won’t be rushing back under these circumstances.
Yet another step towards a surveillance, authoritarian society. The transformation of Johnson from fun-loving libertarian and champion of freedom into the exact opposite of those things is now so complete that the government no longer has any legitimacy in my view.
This is a full on attack on hospitality, no doubt coming from SAGE and the medics. The only way to beat it is for us all to stand up against it, support our pubs etc by using them.
We can’t let this go on any longer. Problem is how you get back at a government that has isolated itself, no parliament, no face to face media in groups and a huge majority and a useless opposition.
The pubs need to do something to win our support, not just take it laying down.
I’ll support one that says “enough is enough I’m not doing it” but not one that acquiesces and cannot be bothered fighting back.
Totally agree, why should we support them if they don’t care enough to fight for their own businesses and then when they do open make it a totally unpleasant experience to visit? Some of the pubs I visited last year had so many rules and regulations, far above the Govt guide-lines, that I stopped going to them. One pub I actually heard the landlord swearing at a woman for not wearing her mask when she got up to go to the loo and telling her to f*ck off and not come back when she complained about his unacceptable behaviour. I wouldn’t want to support anyone like that.
Hope his pub has closed down.
Should be taken to court for harrassment and discrimination. The only people allowed to challenge mask (non-)user are police constables, PCSOs, British Transport Police and individuals specifically designated by the SoS for Health (typically council environmental officers)
In other countries (Italy, Spain , Germany, HollandEtc);businesses stood up to draconian governments and took a stand to get concessions. Merkel stood back from a lockdown this week due to pressure from business, but here the CBI, institute of directors, & other ‘business leaders have followed the lead of the morally bankrupt MPs and just sat back and done nothing. The media for the main are the propaganda department and very few have called the government out. With all the sheep living in the UK today, let’s pray they continue to protect the greenbelt or they will have no where to go.
If it is just a “guideline” then it has no legal standing, no force of law, does not need to be complied with and there are no penalties for not following guidelines.
Plus social distancing is never mentioned in any law, it’s just guidance.
In a FOI from the Government Legal department but UKHospitality, BBPA, CAMRA, Wetherspoons, FSB etc not interested.
“must sign in on entry”
I thought we were only allowed to sit outside
Am I correct in thinking that the NHS track and trace app purely scans the code and displays the venues details on the screen for staff checking. I seem to recall that those details are kept on the phone for 21 days (can be deleted at will) and not uploaded anywhere. If you receive a call from track and trace or initiate a contact because of your own infection then you access venue details as an aide memoir. If that is all correct then the app is more anonymous than leaving your name and phone number (assuming you are not M. Mouse)
I think you are confusing the flawed Bluetooth tracking with barcode scanning. The former is device-based, the later is within their control and could be uploaded for the government / NHS to misuse. They were desperate to get the Bluetooth tracking data too and flushed a ton of taxpayer cash to attempt that, before finally realising that that Apple/Goole restrict.
This NHS app is growing in scope and becoming a software ankle-tag. They are doing their best to coerce people into installing it.
If pubs ever return to being pleasant, I will evade it by saying that it is a work phone and I am disallowed from installing the NHS app (as many employers actually do say). I will then give them contact details for my nearest fascist-supporting MP.
This is because so many are refusing an injection. They will not tell you the correct figures. They use propaganda to say that 90% of the over 70s have been vaccinated. However, if my friends are a snapshot of society its around 50/50. Those who have had the first jab have had reactions from none at all to very severe. Two out our 17 friends being hospitalised through paralysis.
An apartheid society is being created and not one single journalist is asking the searching questions. As with social media we are heading towards the breakup of families, the breakdown of communities and the bubble of freedom fighters looking across the line at the bubble of coercive technocracy. There will eventually be a bloody mess.
My family is already broken by it.
If I identify as a non human do I have to provide details?
There is no pub in the village I live in, it closed 2019. There seems to be more and more ‘man caves’ being built in back gardens in the village, posher folk have ‘summer houses’. I thought it was just happening here until I discovered towns with a few pubs, a couple of regular pub goers are also building ‘man caves’.
I see a future of pubs finding it much tougher to keep the regulars they had and closing for good, as ‘man caves’ take over.
That doesn’t bode well for the neighbourhoods or the police. A pub is regulated, noise levels are easily complained about and sorted. When buying a house, it’s your choice if you buy one next to the local pub.
‘Friends’ visiting and bringing their own cheap drink to someones back garden is going to cause grief with neighbours and when you look at buying a house you won’t know you have a pub by a new name next door.
Definition of the locals ‘man cave’ : Hut in garden, sometimes summer house, inside has comfortable benches along one wall, a bar with a gantry, heating, big screen TV, fridge with glass door, bar stools… Read more »
Quite frankly the hospitality industry is far bigger than the government and the police. If they want to save their industry they should group together, stand strong and open their doors. What is the matter with this submissive society we live in????? If I felt strongly about mu future I would get together with likeminded and fight for it.
It only takes a few dozen to open up and others will be brave enough to follow. The gym owners should have had support from the rest of their industry instead of allowing their fellow workers to be picked off by stasi police.
They’re not the only industry that has went along with this. I really wish that the government hadn’t printed money and bribed all these businesses, because now they are terrified to go against the government and lose the money they were given for nothing.
I know of so many small businesses that are obeying and meeting every single demand that government and worse the council gives them, just to keep some money coming in.
Smaller businesses I have a wee bit of sympathy with but I have zero sympathy with the large companies, they were the ones with clout and not one of them used it.
I am now witnessing the idiot gym owners, still not opening up their gyms because the Scots dictator says they can’t but they can take classes outside.
Outside in Scotland, in March/April in the dark in car parks and the idiots that have sat on their fat backsides and enjoyed their furlough are congratulating these gym owners for being back.
Yes your right the hospitality industry could have opened up but they didn’t and now we’re all going to suffer the consequences.
The government hasn’t printed money. The private Bank of England has and loaned it to the Government at some unpsecified interest rate. Taxpayers will be paying that interest for the ‘furlough’ bribes for decades, along with all the other BS like Trick and Treat, not-fit-for-purpose-but-extremely-profitable PPE, etc, etc.
My next door neighbour has spent the last month building what looks exactly like that. It seems a bit OTT for his occasional barbecue so expect he may be planning to hold regular drinking sessions as the summer approaches. Quite definitely not my scene and not looking forward to it.
Besides all of the ethical and other issues. There are GDPR/data protection issues. There have to be safeguards to ensure that your personal data is protected, as you are providing data that uniquely identifies you.
Just extra hidden costs for the pub/restaurant owner that goes along with this. Hit them with Data Protection Requests.
Where are the restaurant, pub, and cafe CEO’s? Why are they tolerating this nonsense? Also, who exactly came up with this idea, no names given. They are the problem. There is a dysfunctional track and trace system. Is that the same one government proposes to use? Pour more money into this? How about spending a little time and money tackling the complete breakdown of the NHS, which performed poorly under stress.
What do you expect from an incompetent government that has been responsible for many lockdown deaths, due to lack of access to nhs, fear mongering, nosocomial COVID spread.
Exactly. Track and trace is a complete farce. We need more hospitals and beds.
A lot of people will simply wave a phone with out the NHS app at the code and carry on with no one the wiser
I can’t be bothered to grind through the Government stuff on this again today, as once is enough. However, I recall seeing somewhere in the Sea of Bumph that someone (presumably the pub registrar) is supposed to check the phone screen.
And the great British public still think we are conspiracy theorists…..
This April, I’ll be mostly making my own QR codes
https://www.qr-code-generator.com
Please can you explain to me, a tech ignoramus, what you are suggesting. Are you intending to create your own QR code, which you then use to check in to somewhere? Is it really that simple?
Not sure about the qr code but one work around people used last summer was to fill out the online check-in details then simply screenshot it. Next time you go, you just pull up the screenshot, easy work around… So I Am told.
It will be unenforceable unless written in law. Every establishment should refuse to implement. It’s time to bring the dictatorship down.
It is: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1005
Not going – simple as that.
As much as I want to go to the pub it’s not worth the hassle.
Screw Government and screw any business sector that has not fought back to save itself.
There is enough evidence out there to put a stop to all this, it just needs to be used and business has it’s collective head buried up it’s rear end.
On a separate note:
https://laworfiction.com/2021/03/legal-action-to-stop-coerced-vaccines/
Fiction:
Lawyers are doing nothing to stop your employer forcing you to have a vaccine.
Law:
We are doing something. We have written about “No jab, no pay” – a criminal offence. Now we are taking action.
We are going to issue legal proceedings in the High Court to bring an end to coercion to take vaccines. Criminal proceedings might follow in due course.
If you are facing an imminent threat if you won’t have a Covid vaccine, whether its the first or second dose, please register your interest on our Ain’t Just Whilstling page. Although this applies to all sectors, we immediately have the private healthcare sector in our sights for this test case. Register here and spread the word.
Applaud Law or Fiction case re mandatory vaccination as condition of employment, subject to the one caveat, I wish they would also launch a Human Rights case against the whole vaxx passport scheme – maybe they are waiting to see if it actually materialises and to see the full details of what is coming in. Either way, LOF please please bring a case against it.
“I will not make any deals with you. I’ve resigned. I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.”
“I am not a number. I am a free man”.
We should stop calling them vaccine passports. Passport has acceptable connotations, something that you just need to go on holiday.
What is being implemented by our totalitarian regime is not a passport, it is a Vaccine ID card.
Or… Certificate of Vaccination ID…
Permit has the right totalitarian undertone.
I can state quite categorically that I won’t be providing my personal contact details to anyone to get in anywhere. I simply won’t go. Sad, I like eating out in good restaurants, but I won’t go along with any more of this nonsense. Neither will I show a vaccine passport or card.
I see no point in having an experimental vaccine either if you still have to go along with this complete nonsense. This is NOT getting back to normal. This is tyranny and a complete surveillance state.
It’s not about a virus and never was. I loathe this government and everything it stands for. They’ve sold our country out.
Agree completely. It would also be good to let the restaurant/pub know exactly why we’re not eating/drinking at their place. If not, they may just put it down to scaredy cats not wanting to venture out.
No
TheBBC News report is worth reading in full.Fixed that for you.