It will certainly not be motivating for other Brussels café owners. Friday night, the first night that a corona passport became widely mandatory in the Brussels nightlife, a colleague who asked a customer about it was stabbed. “This is not our job,” his wife responds.
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‘It was already difficult for our people to ask for the corona passport, often resulting in aggressive reactions. Now the fear has crept in,” says the victim’s wife and co-owner of the Brussels café Kfk Hope, formerly known as café Kafka. On the night from Friday to Saturday, the police were called around 1.15 am for an incident in which her husband was stabbed by a customer with a knife. That confirms spokeswoman for the Brussels public prosecutor Sarah Durant. “There was an altercation between the owner and the customer, whereupon he pulled a knife and stabbed the owner in the abdominal area.” The café, located in the Vissellers Street in Brussels, is close to the Dansaertstraat and is a well-known entertainment district. The owner was taken to hospital, after treatment he was allowed to go home.
The customer would have refused to show his CST (Covid Safe Ticket). That would be the reason that the manager was attacked with a knife, says wife and co-manager Christiane C. ‘My husband asked him for his corona passport. The customer refused and became aggressive’. The public prosecutor does not want to say anything about the motive or the age of the perpetrator.
‘The atmosphere has changed’
The victim’s wife does not want to go into too much detail, but says that ‘the atmosphere has changed’ among the employees in the cafe. ‘We are going to hire someone externally for security. But that is a sacrifice, also financially. This is not our job.’
It is extra wry that the facts took place on the first night that the corona passport was widely introduced in Brussels. Since Friday evening, a corona pass has been mandatory in the catering industry, except when you stay outside on the terrace.
Apart from the stabbing, the introduction went smoothly, according to Fabian Hermans, president of the Brussels catering federation. He is shocked by the violence. “We absolutely condemn this. In the end we ask no more than that the law is respected.’ But whether this is the task of the cafe owners and the catering industry? ‘We do what politics asks of us’, says Hermans. According to him, hiring a security agent in every cafe is not a solution, although there must be an answer from a political angle. ‘Politics must help ensure that the CST ticket can be maintained. We understand that there cannot be an agent for every establishment, but more blue on the street when going out so that action can be taken more quickly is necessary,’ says Hermans.
Whether this does not deter other catering owners from investing heavily in the control of the CST? Not according to Hermans. ‘The owners I spoke to today were actually planning to bet on it. Out of solidarity’. But that was not what our reporter saw himself last Saturday evening in the same Brussels district. For example, in café Zebra, on Place Saint Géry, about 130 meters from café Kfk Hope, nobody checked for the corona passport.(DS October 18). ‘Too few staff’ it sounded there. If the police started handing out fines, that might change, waiter Tomek (22) estimated.
Brussels Prime Minister Rudi Vervoort (PS) bounced the ball back. “If someone does not want to show their CST, the proprietor should not conflict with the refuser, but call the police,” Vervoort tweeted.
