Cristina Hodgson
NIGHTLIFE calls for urgent review of current measures that affect the sector and demand to be able to open dance floors to 75% capacity (currently limited at 50%) and extend opening hours to 5am.
The reopening of dance floors to almost full capacity and the extension of opening times for pubs and nightclubs until at least 5am are the demands put forward by the Business Coordinator of Leisure and Hospitality of the Valencian Community (CEOH) to the Regional Ministry of Health for the next review of the COVID-19 restrictions, which will be carried out by the Generalitat.
According to the CEOH, ‘any measure less than this proposal is unfeasible for businesses, which are losing up to 90% of their turnover.’
Furthermore, the CEOH demands that the new measures, which will come into force as of September 27, be known in advance for the sector to make the necessary adjustments to meet the new measures and to be able to advance in the recovery of nightlife leisure activities.
Lalo Díaz, president of CEOH has stressed the need to plan a roadmap for de-escalation that takes into account the critical situation faced, especially in the leisure sector, after 550 days without activity.
“SMEs [small and medium-sized enterprises] cannot move forward blindly in this de-escalation, because after 18 months of closure and severe restrictions, leisure venues are staking their future and their survival over the next few weeks,” she said.
Nightlife entrepreneurs claim that they need to plan and design their programming, their marketing campaigns, their financial capacity and the recovery of their staff.
But all of this, they stress, cannot be done from one day to the next, having to improvise this work means assuming additional economic costs due to the last minute announcements by the Consell, as occurred in the previous announcement of COVID-19 regulations in the sector, which were revealed on the very same day the previous ones expired.
The CEOH also insisted that, with a cumulative incidence rate of 70.6, the second best in Spain, only behind Asturias, and with the decline in hospital occupancy and ICUs, not moving forward with the amplification of capacity and extension of opening hours would be ‘unfair’ and ‘disproportionate.’
The Valencian Community also has one of the best vaccination figures in the world. 90% of those over 12 have already had the first dose of the vaccine and 75.96% have the complete regimen.
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