Sheffield restaurant issues important request to customers ahead of weekend

Joe Cribley, who runs piña in Kelham Island, said the ‘one household rule is an absolute death sentence’ for bars and restaurants but there is ‘only so much’ the hospitality industry can do to help reduce the spread of coronavirus.

He said city venues ‘went further than guidance required’ after the national lockdown of pubs and restaurants was lifted.

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But he said that on top of the recently introduced 10pm curfew, new restrictions banning different households from mixing could be a step too far for businesses.

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In an Instagram post he said responsibility for adhering to the new rules should rest with customers and that businesses should not be expected to check addresses.

The businessman said the new rule was ‘unenforceable’ and serving to ‘beat and strangle’ an already struggling industry.

“From day one we have followed guidance, as has every other Sheffield venue I’ve personally been to since reopening,” he said.

“We should be proud as an industry and as people of our city that we’ve made all the changes, adapted our businesses and done everything we were told.

“More often than not we went further than guidance required, we went above and beyond to provide the safest possible environment we could.

“We’ve weathered the hardest year imaginable and continue to take the blame, take the sucker punches, get back up and keep going.

“However there is only so much we can be responsible for.”

He added: “It is your responsibility to adhere to single household polices. We will not be asking for proof of address, we will not be asking to see utility bills, IDs or otherwise to determine you all live in the same house.

"We have no legal right to ask this of you and quite frankly, nor is it our responsibility.

"We trust that if you have a table booked you share a household or support bubble. Simple as that.”

But he said staff will continue to provide socially distanced tables, check temperatures, operate a track and trace system and enforce the ‘rule of six’.

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