The Australian Hotels Association ACT (AHA ACT) believe the Territory’s mask mandate couldn’t have come at a worse time for the hospitality sector, as they brace for a sharp downturn in trade in what is typically their busiest week of the year.

AHA ACT general manager, Anthony Brierley, said venues across town are bracing for a drop in trade of “at least 30 per cent”, with some pubs anticipating an 80 per cent decline on Christmas Eve trade.

“Our experience in July when they brought these rules in was it meant patrons didn’t want to go out,” Mr Brierley said.

“I’ve been speaking with pub operators, and for some people that’s $40,000 gone in a week … Over January, some operators stand to lose over $100,000 in revenue over this rule.”

Mr Brierley said he’s frustrated by the decision to impose a mask mandate on hospitality venues, given he explained to the ACT Government last week that such a rule would result in a sharp downturn of trade.

“They are well aware of the disproportionate impact on the hospitality industry,” he said. “The frustrating thing is they do it anyway and they don’t care.

“The hospitality industry is left subsidising the public health restrictions.”

Mr Brierley explained that in any given year, the money hospitality operators earn in November and December gets them through the leaner winter months, which is especially important this year given the difficulties the sector has faced during the pandemic.

“We’ve lost that now, lost the busiest week of the year where we set aside the most cash,” he said. “That opportunity is gone, and it won’t come back now.”

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said today, contrary to Mr Brierley, that some people within the industry “will be welcoming” the mask mandate.

“Those in hospitality, the frontline staff, are already mandatorily required to wear masks while they were undertaking their work, and we had in fact heard from people that staff were concerned about the fact that while they were wearing masks their customers weren’t,” she said.

“They weren’t quite sure about the logic behind that.”

Ms Stephen-Smith believes this mask mandate isn’t comparable to the mandate imposed in July, saying it’s a “different situation now”.

“We had much lower vaccination rates and it was the first time we introduced mandatory masks back in July,” she said.

“That was a really significant signal that was sent to Canberrans at that time, and they saw it as a really significant signal about the increased risk we thought we were facing.

“This time, people are used to wearing masks, they understand that it is a relatively minor inconvenience, and they understand that they can continue to go about their daily lives just wearing masks.”

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