850 restaurants and bars in Pune shut down till March 22 to combat Covid-19 spread

Pune Restaurant and Hoteliers Association (Praha) decided that all restaurants and bars will voluntarily close

The Pune Restaurant and Hoteliers Association (Praha) decided that all restaurants and bars will voluntarily close for the next three days, till March 20, to avoid the spread of Covid-19. The members held a meeting with the commissioner of police and senior officers of Pune police on Tuesday.

Pubs and Bars on Balewadi High street were closed on Tuesday. (Milind Saurkar/HT Photo)

“At the meeting, it was decided that all restaurants, bars will voluntarily close for business from March 18 till March 20. This is a voluntarily closure requested by us to prevent further spread of the Covid-19,” said Ganesh Shetty, president, Praha.

The city has 3,000 restaurants, of which 850 restaurants and hotels are members of Praha.

According to Shetty, “We took this decision to help control the spread of the virus and also to avoid crowding. We have 25,000 people associated with hotels and restaurants with a turnover of Rs 3 to 4 crore per day. We have excluded parcel service because there are several people who rely on hotel food.”

However pubs and bars across the city decided to shut shop on Sunday.

Manu Gulati, owner, Effingut Brewery said, “We decided to shut the bar on March 16 and it will remain shut till March 22. After all the priority is safety of my staff, which is 325 people, and also the well-being of our patrons.”

With restaurants keeping delivery services open, there is heavy demand for it on Swiggy and Zomato. Zomato spokesperson refused to comment on the number of deliveries per day, but said that they have taken various measures like contactless delivery, and are using multiple channels of communication to sensitise employees, users, restaurants as well as delivery partners.

“We are utilising the partner app as well as SMS services to broadcast WHO best practices among other important information such as Covid-19 testing laboratory locations as issued by the ministry of health. We are also sharing videos with our partners and putting them on our partner app to allow easy access to information. The idea is to regularly distribute the right information so that our delivery partners can focus on their well being while ensuring safe handling of food,” said the spokesperson for Zomato.