Sir, – I am confused by the licensed vintners' proposals for reopening pubs ("No live music, no standing at the bar: publicans lay out plans for opening up before August", News, May 4th).
“No more than four (persons) per 10 square metres and a maximum of six people will be permitted at any one table.”
Does this mean that six people will sit at a table measuring five metres by three metres?
How many pubs have such gigantic tables?
My local certainly doesn’t. – Yours, etc,
PETER THEW,
Clane,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – There is a huge difference between food and drink!
Very few restaurants and zero cafés have clients who drink themselves into a stupor, stumble into other clients on their way to the bathroom, jostle other clients and breathe down their necks while placing an order, or engage in drunken brawls with other clients when they leave the premises.
Unless bars and pubs can ensure that their clients don’t become intoxicated, then they cannot ensure that social distancing regulations will be adhered to.
No bar or pub can therefore be compared to a restaurant or a cafe simply on the basis of, “We all serve food so we should be expected to open at the same time.”
It is the drink served (and its consequences) and not the food that should rightly determine that cafés and restaurants should open first. – Yours, etc,
KATHARINA
GREINER,
Gorey, Co Wexford.