Six businesses fined $164,000 by Worksafe for breaking Covid-19 rules

Thursday, 27 January 2022

Six businesses have been collectively fined $164,000 for breaching Covid-19 rules since December last year.

Three restaurants, a barber, an MMA studio and a tattoo parlour were all handed fines after Worksafe asked them to obey the Covid-19 protection order, and they declined to do so.

WorkSafe head of general inspectorate Simon Humphries said the number of businesses obeying the rules far outnumbered those that broke them.

“The number who aren’t following the rules is a very small minority when you consider how many businesses there are across New Zealand in general,” he said.

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While most businesses have kept their country safe by obeying the Covid-19 protection rules, six businesses have been fined over $160,000 by Worksafe.

Since December last year, WorkSafe engaged with more than 1000 businesses regarding allegations of breaking Covid-19 rules.

Over 95 per cent of the businesses Worksafe engaged with made changes to become compliant.

“When a concern is raised about a business, as part of our ‘educate first’ approach, we reach out to them and provide information about changes they need to make to be compliant,” Humphries said.

But six of the businesses did not heed Worksafe’s request and were subsequently fined.

Lotus Heart restaurant in Christchurch has been fined a total of $44,000 for continuing to break Covid-19 protection rules.

Lone Star New Lynn, run by Damned Fine Food, was fined $24,000 for not checking vaccine passes, and allowing unvaccinated staff to continue to work.

Hammerhead Tattoos was also fined $24,000 for not checking vaccine passes, as well as not displaying a contact tracer QR code in their business, or otherwise engage with contact tracing.

Lotus Heart restaurant in Christchurch was fined a total of $44,000 for continued rule breaking.

The restaurant was fined $20,000 in December for not displaying a QR code or vaccine pass signage, and having no processes in place to check patrons’ vaccine passes.

It fined a further $24,000 in early January for continued breaches after it failed to make any changes.

My Barber was fined $16,000 for not checking vaccine passes or displaying a contact tracing QR code.

Oliver MMA was fined a total of $36,000 over three separate occasions.

Two of the fines were for allowing unvaccinated members of staff to continue working in close contact with customers, and once for not having contact tracing system in place.

The Saint Sebastian Restaurant was fined $16,000 for not having a contact tracing system in place and not displaying a QR code.

Humphries said while he understood people might be frustrated with businesses not doing the right thing, they should trust Worksafe processes to enforce the rules.

“While we understand it may be frustrating for people who are doing to right thing to see a business open and not following the rules, we need to work carefully and deliberately through our processes to ensure non-compliant businesses are held to account,” he said.