A bar and restaurant in Sydney’s inner-west has been slapped with a $10,000 fine after video emerged of large groups mingling and dancing throughout the venue.
Key points:
- Patrons of the bar and restaurant had created several dancefloors in the venue
- The fine comes amid 94 COVID-19 breaches by Sydney pubs, restaurants and bars
- There were no coronavirus cases recorded in NSW today for the fourth day in a row
CCTV from Odyssey Bar Restaurant in Leichhardt revealed the infringements, which remain prohibited across the state under coronavirus restrictions.
It came as NSW recorded zero local cases of coronavirus among more than 20,000 swabs taken in the 24 hours to 8:00pm yesterday.
It is the fourth consecutive day no new locally acquired infections have been found.
Four cases were found in hotel quarantine.
Liquor & Gaming director of compliance Dimitri Argeres said a lack of social distancing led to two $5,000 fines being issued.
“It’s hard to fathom how staff could have failed to notice and stop things getting out of hand as patrons had in effect created multiple dancefloors,” Mr Argeres said.
Inspectors said they found 94 breaches of coronavirus restrictions when they visited more than 70 hospitality venues in Sydney last Friday.
Mr Argeres said of the 74 hospitality venues inspected, 13 were not registered as COVID-safe, 39 did not have a current safety plan, 20 had issues with record keeping, seven were not properly adhering to social distancing, two had hygiene issues and 13 had no COVID-19 safety marshal.
“Such a high level of breaches is simply unacceptable and puts at risk all the hard work in containing the spread of COVID-19,” he said.
Mr Argeres said one venue had not registered as COVID-safe, had no safety plan, had not recorded any patron details since July, had no conditions of entry and had not spaced seating and tables to allow for physical distancing.
“Another venue had no safety plan and no sign-in register or records kept at all — and perhaps most concerningly, did not understand any of the Public Health Order requirements when questioned by inspectors,” Mr Argeres said.
A team of 30 inspectors from the NSW Department of Customer Service are embarking on a second safety blitz across Sydney’s south-west today.
Liquor & Gaming NSW inspectors will also be visiting pubs and clubs screening the second State of Origin rugby league game tonight to check for COVID-19 compliance.
But the degree of violations were not reflected in other industries: out of the 47 hair and beauty salons inspected by SafeWork NSW, just one warning letter was issued.
NSW Fair Trading found all 79 retail shops inspected to be fully compliant.
