HospoDemo: Second protest announced as hospitality industry demands fairer treatment

Loud and proud: demonstrators at the first hospitality protest in October 
AFP via Getty Images
David Ellis @dvh_ellis25 November 2020

A second demonstration calling on more Government support for the beleaguered hospitality industry has been organised for early December. 

A follow-up to the October protests attended by the likes of Jason Atherton, Tom Aikens and Yotam Ottolenghi, the new HospoDemo will head to Parliament Square on December 7 at 11am. After the first rally, Rachel Harty told the Standard that “if nothing changes then we will be doing this again.”

Citing figures from Public Health England, Harty wrote on Instagram: "THE FINAL STRAW. The latest evidence shows just 2% of COVID transmissions can be traced back to hospitality settings, yet the UK government thinks it’s safer to go to a gym, stand in a busy supermarket queue, go Christmas shopping or watch a game of football with 4,000 fans. 

"Just as we were gearing up to re-open our businesses, the new tier restrictions ‪from December 2nd‬ make hospitality the scapegoat once again. The loss of vital Christmas trade will be the final straw for many restaurants, bars, pubs and hotels hoping to survive into 2021.” 

The announcement came after the Prime Ministers statement on Monday, which clarified the new rules for restaurants, pubs and bars opening under Tiers 1, 2 and 3. Under the new system, while concerts with thousands of attendees will be allowed, businesses in Tier 2 can only serve alcohol with “substantial meals” and pubs and bars must shut, unless they operate as restaurants. As such, thousands of “wet led” pubs —those which make their money from drinks — face financial ruin

In her HospoDemo Instagram post, Ms Harty called on hospitality workers to join her in Parliament Square armed with pots and pans to bang, “so those making the decisions that are killing our industry hear us loud and clear.” 

There is a widespread feeling among many in hospitality that the industry has been treated unfairly, compounded yesterday by the Government’s announcement regarding “Christmas bubbles”, which permits up to three households to mix at home, but forbids meeting in restaurants and pubs. 

Yesterday, Lucy Yardley, a professor of health psychology at the University of Bristol and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), warned that people mixing indoors at home were likely to be more at risk than those going to the pub. When asked by Radio 4’s Today programme whether too much weight had been given to the supposed dangers pubs pose, rather than the risks at home, Ms Yardley said: "I think that’s absolutely true and we can see that in the evidence because so much of the infection spread is happening at home…  pubs are actually better ventilated and have more regular cleaning every hour going on than we do in our own homes.”

The protest will be the latest pressure on Boris Johnson to support the capital throughout December. Today, the Prime Minister was hit with a “blue wall” of opposition to inflicting draconian Tier 3 restrictions on London.

The calls come as current case date shows more than half of London boroughs are seeing falls in confirmed Covid-19 cases, with infection rates presently headed towards Tier 1-type levels throughout central London. 

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in