‘Either I open up today or I don’t open up again’

23 September 2020

AS wet bars prepare to reopen today again since lockdown, a Downpatrick publican has said the lifting of the restriction has come just in time.

Daren Fung, who manages and co-owns Fitzpatrick’s Bar in Church Street, worried that his business would not survive the financial impact of the Covid-19 closure.

He will be opening his doors around lunchtime to finally welcome back customers after an absence of almost seven months.

He said yesterday: “I feel that I don’t have a choice about reopening — either I open up today or I don’t open up again.

“I will keep the bar open for as long as I’m able to and as long as my customers and staff are safe.

“However, I am pretty hopeful that this will be the start of recovery and we can get opened permanently with gradually easing of restrictions in the months to come.”

Wet bars — pubs that do not offer food and do not have an outside area for drinkers — are amongst the last businesses permitted to reopen again following the March lockdown.

After postponing two earlier opening dates, the Executive recently agreed a number of measures which must be in put place before a venue can reopen.

These include hand sanitising stations, the wearing of face coverings by staff and customers coming in and going out of the premises and the collection of customer details for contact tracing.

Premises must offer table service only to a maximum of six people per group, and must calculate the number of people who can safely be accommodated in line with social distancing requirements and put this figure on public display.

Mr Fung also said that he has had to organise one way in and one way out for customers, agree to having background music on only and prohibit any dancing.

Mr Fung, who runs the bar with co-owner, Eddie Fitzpatrick, has felt frustrated by what he believes are double standards by the Government at the treatment of bars which sell food and those which don’t.

He said: “I really don’t understand the Government’s logic on how they allow restaurants to be packed out under the Eat Out To Help Out scheme for weeks where people were allowed to go in and sit down for a meal around other people, yet they were not allowed into a bar with social distancing measures are in place.

“I just wonder if the Government realise that families had been badly affected by the pub closures. I have two kids and another one on the way and have been living off a furloughed wage. It was tough making ends meet.”

Mr Fung furloughed four part-time staff at the beginning of the lockdown and said he hopes to have them working again before the end of the furlough scheme next month.

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