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As temperatures drop, visits to bars and pubs increase. But many here don’t take crown-related contact tracing seriously enough, and there are legal concerns too.
By Iris Marx, tagesschau.de
If you fancy a drink or just a few beers in Berlin in the evening, the pubs around Torstrasse in the Mitte district offer a wide selection. Even on weekdays, the bars are as crowded as if Corona never existed. Almost none of the guests are seated, although this is also required by the Berlin Infection Protection Ordinance. “In restaurants and bars, food and beverages can only be consumed at tables and sitting on the counters and counters,” it says in Section 5 (6).
In August there were 18 infections in a Berlin brewery, but the contacts could not be notified. Visitors entered the lists incompletely or with imaginary names, which in many bars and pubs still have to be filled in by hand by guests and are often openly somewhere on the counter.
When Mickey Mouse and Darth Vader are guests
The Berlin Infection Protection Ordinance prescribes such presence documentation for restaurant operators if there are more than 20 people in the room at the same time. In addition to the first and last name, the phone number, full address or email address is required.
But that works quite badly in Berlin with increasing levels of alcohol. “Those who were listed with Mickey Mouse or similar funny names have obviously not yet understood the seriousness of the situation,” complained the head of health senator Dilek Kalayci (SPD) four weeks ago in the health committee. He thought out loud about banning alcohol if operators don’t adhere to the guidelines. Occasional closures cannot be ruled out either.
Alcohol ban and closings in dispute
Also in Hamburg, the discipline of documentation diminishes as the evening progresses. Altona District Office Head Stefanie von Berg said in the daily topicsHe also often observes that employees do not cover their faces with the mask until the inspectors enter the bar. “They are currently playing on the fact that the restaurant industry is still open,” says von Berg.
At least there are controls in Hamburg. In the capital, even a member of the ruling SPD has doubts about it. In a small question, MP Sven Kohlmeier asked how often fines were issued in the respective districts in June, July and August. In the Mitte district it was: zero. “Some districts were unable to give any information on whether or not they control,” Kohlmeier said. tagesschau.de. That reveals a huge deficit of control.
Insufficient or insufficient control by regulatory authorities?
“Before thinking about stricter measures, such as alcohol prohibition or local closures, the existing rules should be better enforced,” said the SPD man. He also sees a possible reason why some on-site inspectors do not step in and impose a fine even in the case of obvious violations of distance or contact tracking rules: “Individual measures may not be legally valid, so employees have a considerable effort to justify the administrative infraction “That could be an impediment.
Constitutionality problem of contact tracing
This leads to an entirely different problem with ordinance-prescribed name and address lists in the federal states: The obligation to pass on personal information about restaurant visits, religious services, or other social gatherings can be a deciding factor in preventing citizens from exercising. fundamental rights. and to create movement and personality profiles, the Constitutional Court of the Saar decided at the end of August.
An ordinance issued only by the executive, that is, the state government, could not issue such a far-reaching obligation. Rather, the parliament is called to “weigh the pros and cons in a public and transparent debate, but above all to regulate the use of information in a legally secure manner,” the judges ruled.
Almost no federal state currently meets this requirement. Greater legal certainty with one’s personal data, which is currently open to everyone in the restaurant, certainly does not affect the acceptance of the measure.
