The Restaurant Association of SA (Rasa) is calling for the cabinet to end restrictions on eateries after an estimated 1,100 restaurants shut down during the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before the onset of the pandemic, Rasa CEO Wendy Alberts said the association had a database of more than 23,400 restaurants it communicated with.
Their database has since dropped to 9,000 and while not every restaurant it no longer works with has closed, she believes thousands have shuttered their doors for good, leaving tens of thousands of workers jobless.
Rasa’s internal surveys suggest more than 1,100 restaurants closed in recent months after lockdown regulations forced them to shut their doors during the height of the third wave of the pandemic, said Alberts.
Cape Town restaurant Test Kitchen, one of the world’s top 50 restaurants that was often booked up for months in advance, recently announced it has closed its doors for good, in part due to Covid-19 restrictions.
Current lockdown regulations dictate that restaurants must close by 9pm, which means some consumers do not have time to go out for dinner and instead stay home, said Alberts.
Repeated alcohol sales restrictions have also cut into industry profits. Liquor sales boost restaurant margins, but many people choose not to eat out if they cannot order a drink with their meal.
Regulations now restrict restaurants to 50 guests regardless of the physical size of the establishment. This has often resulted in queues forming, Alberts said.
Meanwhile, new health minister Joe Phaahla on Friday said he had recommended to the cabinet that SA should remain on alert level three, saying it was “no time to lift restrictions”. Co-operative governance & traditional affairs minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has already extended the national state of disaster to September 15.
“We will be recommending that we remain at level three,” said Phaahla. He said the Western Cape had recorded the highest level of daily infections, active cases and hospitalisations in the past week.
Alberts said the sector’s ongoing pleas for financial relief to the government, cabinet and the minister of tourism have fallen on deaf ears. Restaurants in tourist areas are struggling because of low local and international travel.
“We are still sitting with a vast amount of our staff unpaid with no immediate relief from the government employment relief scheme.”
Alberts said she formed a close relationship with former tourism minister Mmamoloko Kubayi, who took time to learn about the restaurant industry and support them through the pandemic. The new minister, Lindiwe Sisulu, is yet to contact the industry, she added, as they needed to meet her soon.
Meanwhile, world respiratory expert Prof Shabir Madhi, who has repeatedly warned about the risk of indoor gatherings spreading Covid-19, said outdoor restrictions would not be necessary at outside restaurants, thus allowing a more nuanced approach as Covid-19 was not typically spread outdoors.
“There is little reason for limits on numbers for outdoor dining,” he said. Indoor dining, on the other hand, was a function of both area and, more importantly, ventilation.
“Having few people in a poorly ventilated area is much worse than having many people in a well-ventilated area. Risk can now be further mitigated by insisting that adults over the age of 35 years show proof of vaccination,” he said.
Madhi is sceptical that lockdown restrictions have saved many lives since SA’s high infection and death rates, including excess deaths, suggest lockdowns have not been very effective.
“We certainly have not prevented Covid-19 deaths in any substantial manner with the repeat lockdowns,” Madhi said. “The current experience with level 4 demonstrates what has been the case with the past two waves in SA: that the infections take a natural trajectory, subsiding after a sizeable portion of the population has been infected.”
He said as lockdown restrictions were lowered, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal experienced a rebound in infections but Gauteng continued on a downward trajectory, suggesting little link between lockdown and the infection curve.
Alberts said even if there is concern about infection rates in the Western Cape, this should not prevent restrictions from being relaxed and even removed for restaurants in other provinces.
With Erin Bates
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