Bar owner: Lockdown news 'heartbreaking' so soon after opening

Sunday, 14 February 2021

Hospitality business owner Kim Martinez is one of many in Auckland left reeling by the news that the city would be moving move to alert level 3 on Sunday night.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the alert level shift on Sunday evening. The rest of the country will move to level 2, in response to three new community cases of Covid-19 found in Auckland. The alert level change will take effect for an initial period of three days.

“It’s quite hard on us, we’ve only just opened,” Martinez said.

“Every day we can’t trade affects us a lot. It was quite heart-breaking to hear.”

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Martinez gave up work as a flight attendant earlier in the year, worried about the future of the career given the pandemic, and opted to follow her dream of setting up her own business. Brewport is an Auckland microbrewery bar, which opened in November.

Kim Martinez and fellow Air NZ long-haul flight attendant Row at Brewport in Auckland

She said it was likely that businesses forced to close would need support.

“We are finding it hard already as a new small business and so many other small businesses are struggling, it’s going to be really difficult to survive if there is a long level 3 or level 4.”

Ardern said a decision would be made after 72 hours on whether a further wage subsidy would be required. The Government has previously indicated it would roll out a similar wage subsidy programme as before, if a prolonged lockdown happened.

Josh Helm echoes her sentiments. The owner of a number of Auckland hospitality businesses including Orphans Kitchen, Kingi and Daily Bread, was still working out on Sunday evening what the change to the alert levels would mean.

He said the bread for the Daily Bread bakeries took 48 hours to be made, so if it was not sold it would have to be thrown out. He planned to open Daily Bread in Pt Chevalier and Belmont with a click-and-collect, no-contact model.

The restaurants would have to close, he said. “I’m happy to do the hard yards now to be open in four days’ time. That’s the hope.”

Julie White, chief executive at Hospitality NZ, said the news was devastating.

“It’s really lockdown equivalent for the hospitality industry [in Auckland],” she said. “It’s devastating from a business operations point of view. It’s also just another shock that we are going down this path again. There are a lot of fragile people in the industry. We’re really hoping this is short and sharp.”

BusinessNZ chief executive Kirk Hope said the move was disappointing but reiterated the importance of ensuring all people working at or near the border were vaccinated as quickly as possible.

At the Restaurant Association, chief executive Marisa Bidois said many businesses would have stocked up on food for the days ahead and would face the cost of disposing of having to dispose of that, as well as reduced income.

“Obviously this is a blow for our industry who are already struggling to recover from the compounded impact of changes to alert levels and border closures. With borders closed, our revenues continue to suffer and these changes of alert levels are difficult to manage.

“However, our industry would far rather a short time at level 3 than these extended closure periods we are seeing in other parts of the world. We remain hopeful that we will have a return to a level where we fully open for business by next weekend.”

Economist Brad Olsen said the change to alert levels would be a “swift hit” to the economy but the previous alert level changes showed activity was likely to bounce back swiftly as long as the outbreak was contained.

“We expect consumer spending activity in Auckland to fall around 40 per cent per day at level 3 in Auckland. Otago and Wellington regions are likely to see noticeable declines in spending, as leisure and business travel is curtailed. Consumer spending across the entire country is likely to be down 15 per cent per day. In August, there was a very limited rise in Jobseeker Support figures for Auckland.

With a short period of Level 3 announced for Auckland this time around, limited impacts on job numbers are expected. A longer period of Alert Level restrictions will subdue Auckland employment outcomes.

“Northland will be isolated again, which will provide challenges for the region. Retail and hospitality spending will be most affected, with café, bar, and restaurant spending expected to be down around 30 per cent nationwide. Clothing, footwear and department store spending could halve.”

Auckland Business Chamber chief executive Michael Barnett said he would expect the Government to support employers with another wage subsidy.

“We need to wait until we get that confirmed by the Government but there's every reason they would.”

The speed at which the Government had moved to change alert levels, and assurances from it that businesses would be supported, would give businesses confidence, he said.

It may be that the support comes retrospectively, he said.

“Historically they have moved and moved quickly, and they've been supportive, and I would expect exactly the same again.”

He did not think the 72-hour lockdown would spell the end for businesses.

He said businesses that were allowed to be open would need to be contactless.

He expected this lockdown would be much the same as the one in August but hoped there would not be a repeat of issues at Auckland's borders, where cargo and essential workers were held up at checkpoints.