Five Sheffield businesses on 'final warning' over failure to enforce social distancing
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Stephen Lonnia, chief licensing officer at the council, spoke in a meeting about how venues were getting on since pubs and other places were allowed to reopen earlier this month.
He said the majority were following guidelines but that about five businesses were on a final warning and if caught again this week will face enforcement action and possibly closure.
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Hide AdMr Lonnia said: “It wasn’t too bad the first weekend [pubs reopened], it was very quiet really. A lot of chose not to open until the following week and thought ‘we’ll just watch what other pubs do and learn from their mistakes’.
"There are four or five premises that over the three weekends since they reopened have had problems. We did a joint visit to five premises last Friday, I won’t name those for obvious reasons, with the police and health protection service and warned them they need to get their house in order or we will be looking at stricter enforcement measures.
“It’s mostly the queuing outside premises to be fair, particularly on West Street. It’s very difficult and there’s not much space for them and that’s where we have been having problems.
“To be fair 95 percent of the trade have been brilliant, there are just a few problem premises which I suppose is always going to be the case. But all in all I’m happy.
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Hide Ad“If any of those premises are again misbehaving or not following the social distancing then we will be taking enforcement action this week. There’s got to be a time when we stop warning them and take action."
He added enforcement action could result in premises being closed.
Mr Lonnia also stressed most were following the rules and licensing staff had worked around the clock to make regular checks.
He added: “The fast majority of premises have been excellent, they have got on with it, done what they have to do and where they haven’t we have gone to speak to them and they have been happy to engage with us and put things into place straight away like taking tables and chairs out if they are over capacity."