Scrapping of Covid passports welcomed but Highland hospitality industry warns of staff shortages
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The scrapping of Covid passports has been hailed by an Inverness nightclub boss.
“Finally common sense has prevailed,” said Don Lawson who has popular nightspot Johnny Foxes and the adjoining Den nightclub and cocktail bar in the city centre.
“It was never logical that 150 revellers could pack into other nearby bars playing music and with similar opening hours without the need for Covid passports, yet we had to have one.
“Now at least we have a level playing field.”
Mr Lawson, a senior member of the Highland hospitality scene who also operates the Ski-ing Doo restaurant and Alpine bar in Aviemore, said that despite the approaching easing of Covid restrictions, the difficulty in finding staff post Brexit and pandemic did not look like easing any time soon.
He said: “In Inverness and, I am sure, in the wider Highlands it is going to be very challenging finding workers with the summer season approaching.
“We are about 30 per cent down on the staffing numbers we would ideally have although we are trying to work on a long term staffing strategy.
“Pre Brexit and pandemic we would have 40 to 45 full and part-time staff, but today it is 28 and it could mean restricting hours.
“Obviously wages have had to go up and we are paying bar and waiting staff £10 per hour compared with £8.25 before, and this extra cost will have to be passed on to the customer.
“I honestly think some establishments out in the country might struggle to keep going.”
Emmanuel Moine, chairman of Inverness Hotel Association, said: “We are all trying to recruit but the staff shortage remains the biggest threat as summer approaches. We are working on it with people in the schools and UHI but it is very difficult.
“Inverness will manage to keep going but some remote places will have great difficulty. It is a problem nationally, not just up here.”
He said that the use of schoolchildren as waiting staff still requires them to be trained and looked after, and then they can decide that it is not the job for them and “you are back to square one.”
Scotland’s mandatory vaccine passports or the need for a negative Covid test to enter nightclubs and sports venues was one of the most unpopular measures for the hospitality sector.
On March 21, if there has been no Covid upsurge, the regulations requiring face masks on public transport and shops will end, and people simply urged to use masks voluntarily.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Scotland, unlike England, would maintain the recommendation for people infected with Covid to self-isolate.
It would be irresponsible for Covid-positive people to shop or go to work carrying the virus, she said.
She added: “Isolating when positive with a highly infectious virus – and the follow-up tracing – remains one of the most fundamental public health protections that we have available to us.”
Covid passport status welcomed
