Horsham town centre bar owner’s frustration at ‘nonsense’ 10pm curfew

Piries Bar owner Graham Hartley said he is ‘more than happy’ to put in place measures which are backed by scientific evidence but called for a rethink on the curfew.

From September 24 the Government ordered food and drink businesses to shut between 10pm and 5am in a bid to curb the rise in coronavirus cases.

Graham added: “You can only describe it as a shambles. It doesn’t stop people at ten o’clock they just find another way of doing it. They just go to off licences and buy stuff. It’s a nonsense.

“I would not be surprised if sometime this week or next week they change the rules again.”

The bar owner said he was ‘frustrated’ because his team had work very hard to comply with the regulations which had already been put in place.

Graham added: “I’m not advising for one second that we ignore it. We’re following the guidance or the law to the letter. We were just about getting it to work then the rules have changed.”

When lockdown first began to ease Graham said the advice was to stagger hours in order to avoid a ‘massive influx’ of people spilling out onto the streets.

He added that Piries is licensed until 2am but he took the decision to shut at midnight anyway which ‘seemed to work pretty effectively’.

But Graham said the new regulations mean last orders are now effectively at half nine, cutting two and a half hours of trade.