Clean up begins after Londoners hit pubs and bars before Tier 3

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Revellers partied into the night in Soho ahead of London going into Tier Three at midnight with pubs and restaurants forced to close and many forced to throw away unused food, with the streets left full of bin bags.

Many Londoners made the most of a last hurrah with their friends before Christmas despite it still being nine days away, with rubbish bags left piled up on street corners while recycling containers were full of glass bottles.

The capital’s party district was buzzing last night with one woman singing in the street to fellow revellers and another walking around sporting large burlesque feather fans as police officers monitored the crowds.

Theatregoers poured out of West End musicals and shows before they also shut along with other entertainment venues such as casinos and cinemas, as the capital goes into the highest tier of coronavirus restrictions.

London restaurateurs slammed the enforced closure brought on by Tier Three as they threw out bags and boxes of unused products, with UKHospitality expecting millions of pounds worth of food will go to waste.

The capital and parts of Essex and Hertfordshire were put under Tier Three curbs at midnight with hospitality venues receiving less than 48 hours’ notice. While some restaurants are choosing to rely on deliveries during the new measures, other dine-in venues have warned an ‘immense amount’ of food and drink will be binned.

One London restauranteur said the move into Tier Three had already cost him £42,000 in lost bookings, as well as a week of wasted stock, and The Breakfast Group chain said it would lose up to £50,000 of fresh food and drink. 

Thomasina Miers, co-founder of the Wahaca restaurant chain, said: ‘Much as I love the constant resilience of the hospitality sector I can’t help feeling if more of our politicians got proper jobs before starting political careers they may have given restaurants/pubs more notice to wind down stock and empty fridges before being shut down.’

Looking further ahead, Westminster City Council leader Rachael Robathan has warned people ‘not to hover in the West End just to see in the New Year’ amid her concerns over the ‘looming safety risks around New Year’s Eve’. 

Restrictions are supposed to be eased to allow up to three households to meet for five days over the festive period, but pubs in Tier Three will have to remain closed even then.

Andy Jones, 40, who owns Jones & Sons restaurant in Dalston, East London, was forced to close after the capital moved into the higher band of restrictions. 

He has lost hundreds of bookings and revealed his remaining food stock will go to waste. ‘This week, we had about £42,000 worth of bookings in the system already,’ he said.  

‘My biggest gripe is that busy restaurants plan a week ahead. We’ve got a week’s worth of food pretty much either prepped ready to go, bought in already – which you can’t send back – or on order. Think about the wasted food.’ 

Gavin Rankin, owner of Bellamy’s in Mayfair, told MailOnline yesterday evening: ‘The food going to waste is deeply annoying. This whole thing is deeply annoying. We are going to reopen, but when?’

‘All of this horrendous planning comes when thousands of people are allowed to visit shops, we’ve got quite adequate restrictions in place, so why isn’t it safe for us to stay open?’

Ben Tish, culinary director of Norma in Fitzrovia and The Game Bird, at the five-star Stafford hotel in Green Park, said there would be an ‘immense amount of food wasted across restaurants in the capital’.

Mr Tish told The Guardian: ‘We were due to have full restaurants this week, including booked-out private dining rooms, and we had ordered a load of produce in.’

He revealed the restaurant had already ordered and received 100 lobster tails at a  cost of £25 each, which they cannot keep frozen for long.  

Other items, such as truffles, cannot be frozen at all, meaning they too will go to waste. 

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, told The Guardian: ‘As with previous short-notice lockdowns, this is going to cause a glut of wasted food and drink.’

Restaurants in Soho are expecting to rely on delivery services, as they have done during previous lockdowns, but others were donating their food.

Middle Eastern and Asian restaurant Le Bab, in Carnaby Street, told MailOnline: ‘The company will be doing the same thing we did during the first lockdown. 

‘Everything left over in this restaurant and our sister restaurant in Covent Garden tonight will be cooked and donated to NHS staff.’

Some venues were selling drinks for as little as 99p yesterday as they encouraged punters to come and visit before the closures began. 

Up to 8,000 jobs are being put at risk at London’s pub due to the closure, according to The Times, while businesses in Essex and Hertfordshire are also set to be affected.

Cath Thwaites, 52, landlady of the Chequers in Billericay, Essex, told The Times she’ll be losing about £3,000 worth of beer and could lose her pub altogether.

She said: ‘To give us £1,000 to help us through a month is madness. £1,000 doesn’t cover my bills for a week — and that’s not including rent.’

Ms Robathan, leader of Westminster City Council, said: ‘While we all recognise that public safety has to come first – and we will do everything possible to safeguard that – tier three is the last place we wanted to be.

‘It puts some of our businesses, theatres, restaurants, and bars in a fight for survival. We have the biggest hospitality sector in the country – 3,700 licensed venues – which is about to be even harder hit despite our repeated attempts to support it with measures like al fresco dining. Jobs which might have been safeguarded by a pre-Christmas revival are again on the line.

‘That’s why I am lobbying the Treasury with urgency to review the central Government grant support our businesses get. The current formula counts resident population, not the number of businesses, and that means we will have just £5m to spread among 39,000 companies in Westminster – that’s only about £130 per business. That cannot be right for a council which collects nearly nine per cent of the country’s business rates, or £2.4 billion, and it risks damaging the vibrant mix of cultural attractions, retail and shops that makes the West End a symbol of global Britain.

‘Westminster City Council will support the new health rules and ensure our residents are looked after. Our officers will be out to ensure safety messages are clearly understood and, working with those venues that are open, we manage traffic as safely as possible.

‘While the Tier Three rules are clear, the reality is we cannot stop people coming into the West End. This throws into sharp relief the looming safety risks around New Year’s Eve celebrations. I would again appeal to people not to hover in the West End just to see in the New Year – while it goes against the grain of our spirit as a City, the fight against Covid has to be the priority and closely packed crowds simply run the risk of prolonging this tier 3 misery even longer.’

Hospitality bosses slammed the ‘catastrophic’ decision to move London and parts of the home counties into the higher band of restrictions.

Under the new Tier 3 rules, only businesses offering takeaway and delivery will be allowed to remain open. Restrictions are supposed to be eased to allow up to three households to meet for five days over the festive period, but pubs in Tier 3 will have to remain closed even then.

Pubs in Tier 2 areas will be able to open under the band’s restrictions over the Christmas period. But as households are only allowed to mix with people from other bubbles in the home over the five day period, it will make reopening unviable for many pubs, bars and restaurants.

Punters packed into bars from yesterday morning to enjoy one last drink, albeit with a substantial meal, before Tier 3 closed venues for the foreseeable future.

There are warnings that the move into Tier 3 will wipe off £2.7billion from London’s hospital industry as pubs, bars and restaurants are forced to close during the busy festive period.

Some businesses in the city opened their doors from 9am yesterday morning and were offering pints for as little as 99p in an attempt to get rid of stock with only hours to go before the shutdown. One Wetherspoons pub in south West London welcomed drinkers from 10.30am onwards and was busy all morning serving drinkers. 

Campaign for Pubs spokesperson, Greg Mulholland, slammed the government for announcing the decision less than two weeks before Christmas.  

He said the government’s announcement is a ‘shocking way to treat publicans and their families’ and warned it would force many businesses to the brink.

The campaign manager and former MP said: ‘It’s devastating news for pubs and publicans in London and the home counties. To move into Tier 3 just a few weeks after opening again to get some restricted trade, and then this just a few weeks before Christmas.  

Pressure was heaped on Prime Minister Boris Johnson yesterday to abandon the three household ‘bubble’ system over the five day Christmas period, as experts warned lives would be lost if the restriction hiatus goes ahead. 

The PM was expected to meet with ministers to discuss the festive break as it emerged daily coronavirus cases hit 18,450, up 50 per cent on last Tuesday, although deaths were down. 

Industry insiders called for an urgent support package for the hospitality sector to help businesses survive into the New Year. 

It came as people started drinking early at pubs across the capital. Many drinkers continued into the afternoon leading to busy scenes in Soho and Covent Garden.

‘We’re very worried about the impact this will not only have on livelihoods but also mental health. 

‘This is a shocking way to be treating publicans and their families particularly in the run up to Christmas.

‘The goverment keeps changing its mind and changing the rules and it’s having a devastating effect which will threaten the future of many of our beloved pubs in these higher tier areas up and down the country.’

The former MP for Leeds North West also highlighted how the short notice will leave many business owner high and dry with unusued stock – yet another addition to their financial woes. 

‘Pubs will have stock on the basis that they were allowed to be open at this crucial trading time of the year, and now forced to close in a matter of days and dispose of that with no compensation whatsoever from the government,’ he said. ‘We need an urgent package of support.’

Publicans will have to dispose of unused stock if it is not sold, leading to concerns there will be a repeat of scenes witnessed at the start of the second national lockdown. 

An estimated 70million pints of beer were poured down the drain when the country went into lockdown on November 5. 

A spokesperson for Wetherspoons, who is selling off their surplus stock for as little as 99p in some of their pubs yesterday, said it was ‘disappointing’ but necessary to dispose of unused stock. 

Calling the hospitality sector a ‘scapegoat’ during the coronavirus crisis, JDW spokesman Eddie Gershon told Mail Online: ‘With those pubs moving into Tier 3 in London, Hertforshire and Essex if everything is not sold by the end of play today will have to be thrown away. 

‘You can’t keep it, so might as well try and offload it. It is good beer, and some of those beers would usually be round £6 a pint in London. 

‘Our prices at £2.20 a pint are very good value, so we hope people enjoy it at low prices and from our point of view we need to get rid of it.

‘The hospitality sector seems to be the scapegoat, but when things happen we just have to deal with it. ‘ 

Industry insiders warned the closure of pubs would wipe billions of pounds off the UK economy and put thousands of jobs at risk. 

According to the British Beer and Pub Association there are 3,680 pubs and 56,000 sector jobs in the capital alone.

Kate Nicholls, the head of UK Hospitality warned the closure would ‘change the face of the capital for years to come’. 

She said: ‘The effect this shutdown will have on businesses is absolutely catastrophic.

‘The impact of this is both immediate and dire for those businesses forced to close and the effect will be also long term on wider businesses.

‘For those businesses directly affected it will wipe off £2.7bn from the London economy in the last two weeks of December. 

‘It’s such a disproportionate effect because it’s the two busiest trading weeks in the year lost in the largest most valuable hospitality economy in the world. 

‘It’s also put 160,000 jobs directly at risk just before Christmas.’

Ms Nicholls said only 1 in 5 of London’s hospitality venues had been able to reopen effectively since December 2 and the move into Tier 3 means many more may never reopen.   

Industry experts also criticised the number of shoppers seen crowded into the streets in the run up to Christmas. 

Mr Mulholland said the hospitality industry was bearing the brunt of the restrictions, despite being heavily regulated – unlike High Streets and shopping centres. 

He said: ‘There’s huge anger amongst publicans and their families at the fact the government is allowing – and indeed encouraging – huge crowds of people to congregate to go shopping in a totally unregulated environment while scapegoating pubs and hospitality, forcing them to close and giving them derisory support in response.’

He added: ‘We must have adequate support, the government cannot continue to treat pubs the way that they have without properly supporting them.

‘The evidence based decision they’re taking is extremely questionable, indeed threadbare. 

‘But nonetheless, now that they have taken this devastating decision, they need to come up with a proper package of support for all Tier 3 areas. 

‘It leaves people at the end of a very difficult year with great worries about the future of their business and their ongoing livelihoods.’ 

Ms Nicholls joined calls for a comprehensive support package to support the businesses facing difficulty in the face of closure.

She called for the government to extend the business rates holiday into 2022, and extend the lower rate of VAT for the tourism and hospitality services for the whole of next year.

‘It’s going to be a domino effect unless we can get additional support to these businesses,’ she said. 

‘That support will allow these businesses to make decisions about investment for next year in confidence, will avoid unnecessary job losses over the Christmas period and will allow support to be maintained throughout the recovery.’  

Emma McClarkin, Chief Executive of the British Beer & Pub Association, called it ‘another nail in the coffin’ for pubs. 

She said: ‘It could completely destroy many pubs in London and parts of Hertfordshire and Essex.

‘It is cruel on hardworking publicans doing all they can to support their communities and invest in implementing all the required safety measures. 

She added: ‘It is not fair that pubs in London and other parts of England receive four times less financial support than pubs in Wales. 

‘Particularly as pubs in London are the most expensive to run.

‘Support also needs to be made available to brewers and the wider supply chain businesses also seeing a major trade channel closed overnight.’

Social media users backed the pubs with some taking to Twitter to slam the ‘idiotic decision’.

One person wrote that the constant flip flopping it was ‘not a fair way to treat people’.

They posted:  ‘I don’t think London should ever have come out of Tier 3, thinking of all the small businesses that will have bought stock in prep for Christmas only to now be stuck with it. It is not a fair way to treat people’.