Saturday 24 October sees Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley and Doncaster move up to tier 3 which means you aren’t allowed to mix with anyone outside your own household or support bubble except in parks and the countryside, additionally pubs are only allowed to remain open to serve meals.
You will still be able to go to the pub for food (and have a drink with your meal) but of course not with anyone you don’t live with.
This will see any pub that doesn’t serve food closed down and most that do starved of custom, putting them at risk of going out of business. Those that have to close get some government help with wages and possibly a small grant, but this is expected to be inadequate to keep them in business.
The situation has been described as heartbreaking that the hospitality sector is being targeted in this way when many others others haven’t despite investing a lot of effort and money adapting to be clean, safe and covid-secure.
Like with the 10pm curfew, there are likely to be side effects, for example encouraging groups of friends to eat and drink in potentially busy public parks where there isn’t the same kind of regulation as licenced premises.
We encourage all our members (and anyone else reading this!) to keep supporting local pubs and breweries through this wherever possible – consider going to the pub for lunch; or buying cans, bottles or minikegs to drink at home directly from local breweries.
If you haven’t already, please email your MP to call for proper government financial support for pubs to help them survive whilst doing their bit to keep everyone safe – the Save Our Pubs campaign page makes it easy to do.
PUBLICANS: please let us know if you are remaining open serving food and beer from Saturday so we can add you to our list online.
Government information regarding tier 3 (very high alert)