[ad_1]
Bars and restaurants will close today at 11:00 p.m. in the city of Berlin, in an effort to curb the alarming increase in coronavirus cases.
A similar measure applies from Friday night in Frankfurt, where bars and restaurants will be closed from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. the next day.
RELEVANT ARTICLES
In Berlin, the measure will be applied in most stores except pharmacies and gas stations and will be valid until at least October 31. After 11 pm, the sale of alcohol at gas stations or grocery stores will also be prohibited.
“This is not the time to celebrate”
“Now is not the time to celebrate,” said Michael Miller, the Social Democratic mayor of the capital, on October 6, justifying the measure. “We can and want to avoid a new quarantine,” he added, addressing mainly young people.
The municipality also decided to drastically reduce meetings. Thus, from 11:00 pm to 6:00 am, no more than five people are allowed to gather in the open air. During the day this limit is kept at 50. Indoors it is allowed to gather up to 10 people, at most, instead of the 25 that there were until now.
These measures are mainly aimed at family gatherings and illegal parties, which authorities consider outbreaks of the new coronavirus.
Reactions to measures
The “Berlin Bar” collective called the closure measure “catastrophic” and intends to go to court. According to the Statista Institute, in 2018 there were about 9,800 restaurants in Berlin, of which 1,700 were bars or pubs. Nightlife in the German capital is an essential component of the city’s economy. The clubs alone raised more than 1.5 billion euros in 2018.
[ad_2]
