About 200 restaurants plan to resume operations on February 6 despite restrictions
The restaurant business says that it is now fighting for survival and is ready to work under regulations, following safety rules. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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About 200 restaurants in Georgia plan to resume operations on Saturday, February 6 despite the Covid-19 restrictions, announces the chairman of the Restaurant Association, Shota Burjanadze.
He said that the decision was made today and additional details will be announced tomorrow.
The restaurant business says that it is now fighting for survival and is ready to work under regulations, following safety rules.
Last week they also held a rally in front of the administrative building of the government of Georgia, where about 200 restaurants announced they refused to operate a 24-hour delivery service in protest.
Georgian Economy Minister Natia Turnava said that 'disobedience, violation of the law is unacceptable'.
It will be my request and my hope that such wrong, illegal actions will not complicate the dialogue between us", said Turnava.
Following the plan for the gradual lifting of restrictions of the Interagency Coordinating Council, restaurants and food facilities in Georgia, including hotels, will continue to operate only with a delivery service. The Adjara region is an exception, where from February 1 it is allowed to receive guests in the open spaces of food facilities, however will be closed on weekends to regulate the increased mobility.
If the restaurants do not obey the restrictions and continue their operations they will be fined 10,000 GEL.
Restaurants are closed and have been working on delivery service from November 28.
Several Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted in Georgia today since there are signs of an easing of the epidemiological situation in some regions of Georgia, the government announced earlier today. Municipal transport will resume operations in five Georgian cities of Batumi, Zugdidi, Gori, Poti and Telavi, but will not operate on weekends in order to manage increased mobility.Shops and shopping centres are opened in the same five cities during the working days and will be closed on weekends.
Representatives of various businesses are holding a protest rally in front of the administrative building of the government of Georgia demanding the coronavirus-related restrictions be lifted. Claiming that restaurants, hotels and winter resorts will fail to recover unless they reopen as soon as possible. The protesters say that therefore their businesses wil die out eventually.
Couriers of delivery company Glovo have held a rally at the company office in Tbilisi complaining about working conditions and demanding an increase in salaries.
Several coronavirus-related restrictions will be lifted in Georgia in February and in March, following a plan approved at today's Interagency Coordination Council meeting. Georgian Infrastructure Minister and the first Deputy Prime Minister Maia Tskitishvili said that since there are signs of an easing of the epidemiological situation in some regions of Georgia, there is also the possibility of lifting several restrictions.
Georgia has reported 583 new cases of coronavirus, 671 recoveries and 19 deaths in the past 24 hours.
The Georgian government has announced the lifting of several coronavirus-related restrictions due to the decrease in daily infections. Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia stated earlier today that all public transport around the country will resume operations starting February 8, as well as open markets. Starting February 15 all food facilities, including restaurants will be able to provide their service only in open areas.
Organisations that violate Covid-19 restrictions in Georgia will no longer be eligible to receive support from state programmes and will not receive state subsidies, announced Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia at today's government meeting.
Restaurant business representatives have changed their mind to resume operations tomorrow despite the Covid-19 restrictions following the decision of the government of Georgia which allows restaurants to provide their services only in open areas starting February 15.
Georgia has reported 602 new cases of COVID-19 after conducting a total of 18,335 tests (7,744 PCR tests and 10,591 rapid tests) over the last 24 hours. Out of the 602 new cases 246 were reported in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.