The hospitality sector, represented by FEHT have put forward their request for specific measures for bars, restaurants and cafes as the Government is reviewing restrictions for when the state of alarm finishes on May 9th and all regulations are implemented by the regional inter-territorial council.
FEHT has addressed the need for more specific measures that allow the sector to reopen in a meeting with the public health commission, stating that the extension of opening hours is paramount to at least 11pm and midnight if possible, regardless of alert level.
They also want to changes to how the occupancies of the terraces and interiors are regulated, implementing distances between tables instead of the current percentages of occupancy; and segmenting in a more detailed way, the hospitality and catering sector, taking into account its size or location.
In this way, they also want a solution for venues that have an ‘interior’ terrace in a shopping centre, and large establishments that, for whatever reason, don’t have terraces.
In addition, they have proposed to analyze and explain the possible measures of natural or forced ventilation in interiors of hospitality venues so that owners know how to make their own business safe and can open.
One of the main points that FEHT wants addressing, is a unification of criteria between the current traffic light system in the Canary Islands with the mainland, since the national regulation only suggests the closure of interiors when there are more than 150 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, whereas in the Canaries it is much lower than that, which they don’t deem as being fair.
In the same way, they have requested to study specific measures so that the nightlife sector can gradually open its businesses as well, with a similar set of criteria in place.
