ZAGREB, Aug 14, 2020 - The national association of hospitality providers on Friday called for compliance with the latest measures and recommendations by the Civil Protection Authority related to bars, but considers that they are unfair to those who have adhered to the measures all the time.
The national COVID response team on Thursday adopted a decision whereby hospitality venues described as 'bars', which refers to night clubs, night bars, disco-bars, cafe bars and the like, will not be allowed to be open after midnight. The measure will remain in force as of today and for the next ten days.
Ahead of the coming public holiday weekend, the association of hospitality providers called on everyone in the hospitality sector to, as always until now, comply with all the measures and recommendations by epidemiological services and the civil protection authority.
However, coming to terms with the epidemiological reality, the association warns that that decision was adopted without considering the specific features of hospitality and the broad definition of the variety of enterprises that are considered to be bars.
"It is unfair that hospitality venues that have until now operated in accordance with all the recommended measures, and entire regions without a rise in new cases of the infection such as Istria and the Kvarner archipelago, to be penalised due to the negligence of some individual clubs. We object to limiting working hours, seeing that bars encompass too broad a number of hospitality venues, from peaceful cafe bars on the beach in Istria to the biggest clubs in the Adriatic. Our proposal is that each club and other venues identified as hotspots (of the infection) to be immediately closed temporarily for 14 days and that their employees be tested," Marin Medak said on behalf of the association.
The association called for more frequent inspections and penalties for those venues that do not adhere to epidemiological measures, as they are causing damage to public health and to all those businesses that are operating in consistence with the authority's measures.
