Newly-reopened pubs hit by Covid level shift

The Spout Beer Garden: "We'll try it for a week."

Though only reopened a bare couple of weeks, Kilcullen's drink-only pubs now face restrictions that mean they can't serve customers indoors, as also do their food-serving equivalents, under the Level 3 Covid-19 Framework, writes Brian Byrne.

As yet none have received guidance from their vintners' association, or specific restriction details from Government, but it looks like a maximum of 15 customers can be served, and only in outdoor settings.

"That makes it very difficult to trade profitably," Tommy Dignam of The Spout told the Diary this evening, following the Taoiseach's announcement of the new restriction level. "But we have our beer garden at the back, so we're going to give it a go there for a week and see what happens."

He said it will be more difficult because of the time of the year and if the drink-only pubs had been able to open during the summer, it wouldn't be so bad if they had to close now.

Meantime, pubs will be open as normal tomorrow, Tuesday.

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