'Hanging by a thread': Hospitality owners call for targeted Covid-19 support

Tuesday, 15 March 2022

The hospitality industry is asking the Government for targeted assistance, saying businesses are “hanging by a thread”.

Mandy Lusk, co-owner of the Auckland restaurant Vivace, says her business is “haemorrhaging” money.

“Its horrendous. We’ve basically lost everything we’ve worked for 30 years.

“And mentally it’s awful … there’s a lot of wandering around the house between the hours of 3 and 5 in the morning,” she said.

* Business in capital taking double hit from Covid-19 red setting and protests

Mark Wilson, owner of The Grange bistro in Takapuna, has written an open letter to Finance Minister Grant Robertson about the hospitality industry’s struggles.

* Covid-19: Auckland bars handling vaccine passes with ease on 'Freedom Day'

Customers are simply not in the CBD, she said. On Tuesday last week, Lusk closed her restaurant at 7.30 pm, the earliest she’s closed it in 30 years.

“Our staff can’t work from home. On these nights that we get them in, if everyone cancels, and we have to close early, they lose hours. There’s no money left to pay them,” she said.

Patronage at Vivace restaurant in Auckland CBD is 80 per cent down from pre-Covid times, according to co-owner Mandy Lusk.

Lusk’s situation is not unique. Hundreds of struggling hospitality owners are also calling out for Government assistance.

Mark Wilson, the owner of the Grange bistro in Takapuna, has written an open letter to Finance Minister Grant Robertson asking him to consider an emergency package for the industry.

More than 400 hospitality business owners have signed the letter, which says many businesses are “hanging by a thread”.

“Since the onset of Omicron and the larger case numbers, it's been a ghost town. People are not just coming out,” Wilson said.

“We appreciate the wage subsidies and the resurgence payments that have been paid in the past. But every single business, no matter what sector you’ve been in, has been eligible for those.”

The Government’s recent financial support for struggling businesses was a good step, but it was not enough, he said.

“We’re still dealing with Covid, but we just don’t have the support that we had back in early days. There’s more fear out there due to the large number of cases, so people are just not coming out.”

When it came to targeted assistance, “hospitality hasn’t had a single cent”, he said.

Over the past few years, the racing industry, the tourism sector, and the arts sector had all received targeted assistance to keep them going through Covid lulls.

The open letter calls for a short-term targeted wage subsidy for hospitality to be paid during the red light setting.

“We need this with urgency as every week that goes by, it is harder and harder to make payroll,” the letter says.

Mat Jorgensen, the owner of Auckland CBD businesses Ding Dong Lounge and Infinity Nightclub, has lost his house and life savings to Covid.

“We’re haemorrhaging money, absolutely haemorrhaging money at both places.

“I’ve been dishing out my life savings week after week. I would have closed down if I hadn’t been topping [my employee’s wages] up every week.”

This time had been the hardest in his life, he said.

“We don’t feel valued as an industry. We feel like we’ve been thrown to the dogs. It’s not good.

“I guess I’ve just gone to a zombie-like stage where I'm just waiting for the bottom … I’ve basically lost everything already, and I’m not the only one.”

In February, Robertson told Stuff the Government was “actively considering” offering more targeted support to various sectors.

Overall economic activity was down only slightly, but “for some sectors, including hospitality, the drop in business has already been significant”, he said.

“As with the recently announced arts and creative sector package we are actively considering whether further, targeted support for some sectors is necessary, and we will make announcements in the near future as appropriate.”

Robertson has been contacted for further comment.