LISBON (Reuters) – Clubbers in Portugal wishing to get rid of the coronavirus blues will have to wait a little longer to dance the night, as nightclubs have received the green light to reopen from Saturday, but with an early closure and no dance floor allowed. .
The Portuguese government announced thursday that bars and clubs can reopen if they wish, but following the same regulations implemented for cafes and bakeries. They’ll have to close at 8:00. Lisbon and 1am in the country.
Nightclubs, which were forced to close in March when a closure was imposed to combat coronavirus, can use the table dance floor area where other people can hang out and eat something, as long as the social distance is respected.
“There is an opportunity for institutions like bars to serve as bakeries or cafes,” Cabinet Affairs Minister Mariana Vieira da Silva said at a press conference, and said that there are still “no requirements” for institutions to resume their general operations because of the threat. contagion.
Concerned about the industry’s long-term and industry’s employment skills, business leaders were not satisfied with this decision.
“This is true,” Renancenca radio station Hugo Cardoso, president of an agreement representing the country’s nightclubs and bars, told Renancenca radio station Hugo Cardoso. “A nightclub that closes at 8 p.m.? A nightclub that closes before other people arrive?”
Antonio Fonseca, president of a similar agreement in Porto, the largest city of the moment in Portugal, told the Portuguese television channel RTP that the government’s resolution is “ridiculous.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” he says.
Portugal was first praised for its immediate reaction to the pandemic, but a normal count of several hundred new cases a day in and around Lisbon over the next two months has concerned domestic and foreign authorities.
The government said the number of instances in the affected spaces had declined, leading the government to degrade the state of “calamity” in a total of 19 civil parishes around Lisbon to a category of “contingency”, at the same point as the rest of the city. Metropolitan area.
Reporting through Catarina Demony; Editing through Alex Richardson
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