The opening of the catering industry has been postponed again by at least a week. And that measure hardly comes as a surprise, says Koninklijke Horeca Nederland. However, the annoyance seems to be increasing.
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“No, you saw this coming,” says Robèr Willemsen of Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) and owner of several catering establishments in the region. “But you can say that there is a faltering policy.”
Earlier this week there was talk of scrapping the curfew and reopening the terraces and shops. Now the cabinet says that it is still too early to relax the measures, because the number of infections has not peaked yet.
A spokesman for the cabinet announced on Sunday that the relaxation, including the reopening of the terraces, is planned for April 28. “But I don’t dare to bet any more money on it,” says Willemsen. “We have been open for a long time and have plans to do so, but the government should stop to see us as part of the problem instead of the solution.”
Solution instead of problem
Willemsen, who also tells the government that they ‘first have to get their own vaccination problems in order’, foresees that quite a few problems will arise in the coming period. “And not with pubs that open despite everything, but more with the population. When it soon becomes sixteen to seventeen degrees, everyone will go back to the parks if the terraces remain closed. I wish the mayors good luck with the enforcement. of the corona rules this way! “
If relaxations are implemented on 28 April, the KHN does not want to be fobbed off with terraces alone, according to a statement. “The catering industry must then be able to open its doors in accordance with phase 1 of the KHN catering route map, so also indoors. In the plans that have been prepared, KHN has looked at what can be done safely and what causes as little damage as possible to the economy.”
Willemsen has a meeting with the Ministries of Justice and Security and Economic Affairs on behalf of the KHN on Monday. “We’ll see what comes out of those conversations.”
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