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Association Of Catering Establishments Backs Call For Removal Of Restrictions As Wage Supplement Ends Looms

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The Association of Catering Establishments (ACE) has backed calls for restaurants to be given a date on which they can return to normality., 

Speaking during a tourism conference yesterday, Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association council member Isabelle Debattista, challenged Superintendent Charmaine Gauci about restrictions currently in place. 

“We were promised normality upon achieving herd immunity; now 93% of the country is vaccinated and all arrivals must be vaccinated too,” Debattista said at a tourism conference organised by the MHRA.

Noting the impending end of the wage supplement, she warned that establishments have had to drastically increase their wage payrolls to ensure compliance with COVID-19 restrictions. At the same time, they faced an increase in overhead costs due to rises in importation costs.

ACE said it fully supported Debattista’s call “for the immediate easing of restaurant restrictions” and for a return to operations without capacity and distance limits. 

“Her sentiment reflects the ACE’s insistence with the Superintendence of Public Health earlier in September, to offer restaurant owners the possibility of operating without table capacity and distance restrictions, or the possibility of a hybrid option similar to the current smoking zone areas available in restaurants,” ACE executive secretary Matthew Pace said. 

Pace added that the easing of restrictions was today “more relevant than ever”, given that only1% of all restaurant owners had applied to have more restrictions lifted by limiting attendance to vaccinated guests. 

“The easing of such restrictions is also relevant more than ever when one keeps in mind the financial, operational and human resources challenges the restaurant industry is facing,” Pace said. 

Do you think restaurant restrictions should be lifted?

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Yannick joined Lovin Malta in March 2021 having started out in journalism in 2016. He is passionate about politics and the way our society is governed, and anything to do with numbers and graphs. He likes dogs more than he does people.

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