Punters staying away by choice are hurting revenues just as lockdowns did. Rishi Sunak should step in
The case for offering help to hospitality companies during the Omicron flare-up is overwhelming. Through no fault of their own, businesses have been left “in no man’s land”, as Simon Emeny, chief executive of London pub chain Fuller, Smith & Turner, puts it.
Pubs, restaurantsand theatres haven’t been ordered to close, which presumably would automatically trigger a support package from the Treasury, as it did last year. Yet trade is suffering anyway because the public, sensibly, is taking notice of the chief medical officer’s advice to tone down the socialising. Rishi Sunak, even before he made his way back from several days in California, must have noticed reports of mass cancellations of restaurant bookings and pantomimes playing to mostly empty theatres.
