Dude, you’ve changed!” – The customer stares through the reflections on the plexiglass into the face of the bartender at his local watering hole. “It’s just that you haven’t seen me in a long time,” says the “pal,” who looks good for his sixty-something years. They haven’t seen each other in 106 days.
Pubs, restaurants and cafes in England were allowed to reopen on July 4 after more than three months of coronavirus restrictions. Two other parts of the United Kingdom, Scotland and Wales, decided to wait a little longer, while Northern Ireland opened its drinking establishments a day earlier.
English pubs have never closed, at least not in the recent past. Pubs were open during both world wars. During World War I, however, the government forced them to close early in the evening, based on the idea that factory workers should be sober and not hungover. During World War II, under German bombing, pubs operated as usual – as much as “usual” as possible. And then came the coronavirus – and for the first time in history, the government ordered pubs, restaurants and cafes to close on March 21. And on the 4th of July, they allowed them to reopen.
Theoretically, pubs should reopen with various precautionary measures, which the government detailed in the official “guide” for drinking establishments.
Some establishments require a plexiglass barrier and disinfectant. But three pubs in south-east London visited by the correspondent of the BBC Russian Service on Saturday responded to these recommendations in very different ways: from strict compliance to complete disregard of COVID-19.
“You have a reservation? Good. Follow me. Here is your table. Please just sit here,” the red-bearded maître d’ of the bustling pub greets the first customer (who turns out to be a BBC correspondent) after the lockdown. “See the circles on the floor near the bar? You can only order from those places. If they are occupied, you will have to wait,” the hostess continues. There is a small form on the table – name, zip code, phone number, date of visit – to track down infected people, if any are found. These are government requirements.
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An attempt to return from the bar with a pint of beer the same way I came from the table, nice, with a smile, is interrupted by the girls behind the bar: no, you have to go around, there, through another hall. The attempt to stay in this hall under the screen with an interesting football match is stopped by the same metered person: “I’m sorry, I can’t allow you to stand here. I can switch this game to the screen above your table”.
“Yes, everything is a bit strange for us right now” – this middle-aged man is discussing with other customers, a young couple, the procedure of ordering food. “A few,” yes.
A few hundred meters away is another bar, old and small, the one where the bartender separates himself from the customers with a plexiglass screen. Apart from this screen, no other security measures are visible. Strangers do not come here, and those who do are unable to observe social distancing. The little old man, who, judging by his appearance and gait, had been coming to this place since it opened 150 years ago, shuffled a few feet from the door to the bar, raised his hands in triumph as if he had just scored a goal: “Hooray, you’re open again, I’m so happy! – and immediately went to hug his friends who had gathered around a table in the corner.
But he is stopped by the bartender, who emerges from behind his transparent screen and embraces the valued guest: “Wait, friend, here’s a piece of paper and a pen, write down your name and phone number and put it here in the box. Sorry, that’s how it’s done. If this pub tried to comply with the government’s recommendation of at least three feet between patrons, it would probably fit about seven or eight people. But here, under each of the four screens – two showing horse races, two showing football – small groups of people sit close together. “Well, it’s not quite like before, before the lockdown, but at least it’s something,” muses one of the regulars, stepping out into the street for a smoke. “Life is coming back.”
A few blocks away from the busy streets and tourist trails is another pub. Here, strangers are even less likely to come – only locals, residents of the nearby district, and some dedicated patrons from a little further afield. The government’s precautionary recommendations haven’t reached here yet. This pub has just opened as if nothing had happened – they don’t even keep track of the names of the visitors. I see, you don’t have “stand here, sit there” here. “Well, yes. But I’m afraid we still have to implement it,” the bartender sighs.
Several dozen people gather at the bar and in the incredibly beautiful and cozy courtyard, happily hugging each other – they haven’t seen each other for three months – and going from table to table. Moreover, these are the same people who solemnly and mournfully, though very loudly, “closed” this place on the evening of March 20. “Well, we drink responsibly,” two neighboring tables are discussing over the third or fourth pint at three o’clock in the afternoon. “Drink responsibly” is the slogan of a British public service announcement. Only one episode briefly reminds us of the coronavirus: a shining hostess, going to the tables, tries to hug and kiss a young visitor with a baby in a stroller, but she (unlike other regulars) gently pushes him away: no-no-no, not now.
The government’s instructions on how to organize work for the pubs after the closure are detailed, but not very strict. They describe everything – the distance between visitors and staff, the allowed number and composition of groups of visitors, pre-booking, non-intersecting routes in the pub, contactless payment, disposable menus, disinfectants, and so on – but in each or almost every item there is the phrase “where possible” or “if possible”.
The owner of a pub in the seaside city of Portsmouth, Russian immigrant Vladimir Nasadovich, explains that every pub should have a “risk assessment” and a list of measures that can be checked by an authorized person from the local council. “I did a lot of things. First of all, you can’t have the sound on when you’re showing football. I won’t turn on the slot machines. You can only play pool on one of the two tables. I rearranged the tables to create a distance of more than one meter. No one sits at the bar – I fenced off the entire bar with chairs and tied it up with a ribbon to ensure a two meter distance between the person ordering and the staff. No one should stand in the pub – everyone should sit. In general, it’s quite difficult,” says Nasadovich.
The first night of open pubs was noisy. In London’s Soho, the police separated people fighting (in the photo). In the county of Nottinghamshire, at least four people were arrested and five pubs were closed due to the fights. Many British pub owners have been complaining in the press in recent weeks that even in “peaceful times” they were operating on the edge of profitability, and with all these restrictions and the costs of closing down (unsold beer had to be simply thrown away), reopening would inevitably result in losses. Therefore, they are not particularly pleased with the permission to reopen.
“This is a complete disaster. I have no idea whether I will survive or not. Not only was I closed for three months, but they continue to charge me rent and various other expenses in full, and it is still unclear what will happen next,” said Nasadovich. “I used to have about a hundred people watching the soccer broadcasts, but now I only have about forty,” the pub owner continued. “I had two women’s darts teams, a men’s darts team and a men’s pool (billiards) team. So every night on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays there was constant competition. And now I have lost all that, all those leagues have been canceled… In general, everything is terrible. Terrible. I don’t know what’s going to happen. On the 4th of July, only 70% of pubs, restaurants and cafes in England were open. The remaining 30% decided to postpone. Some may never open again.