Small venues in the ACT will be able to have 25 people in their venue from this Friday 18 September, the ACT Government announced today, Monday 14 September.
The ACT Government announced the minor update to Step 3.1 restrictions today, allowing smaller venues, facilities and businesses to return to their pre-COVID occupancy number with a maximum of 25 people across the whole venue, excluding staff.
The update will be subject to a successful COVID Safe Check Point assessment by the Chief Health Officer, which will be conducted on Thursday 17 September.
An ACT Government statement said the update does not mean businesses and individuals can “forget their health and safety requirements”.
“We recognise that this may mean that customers in a small business may not be able to maintain physical distancing of at least 1.5m, however, businesses should strive to separate groups or tables as far apart as practical within the usable space,” the statement said.
“It is also important to continue the collection of contact details of visitors and patrons to ensure we are in a particularly strong position to contact trace if need be.
“Customers and groups in smaller venues will still need to physically distance from each other wherever possible, practise good hand and respiratory hygiene and stay home if unwell.”
Venues must still abide by their standard occupancy loading and the regulatory conditions of the venue, and businesses that want to have more than 25 people in their venue must apply the ‘one person per four square metres of usable space’ rule.
The maximum number of people allowed for each indoor and outdoor space is still 100.
The ACT once again recorded no new cases today, 14 September. The number of negative test results is now at more than 87,000.
For more information, visit the ACT Government’s COVID-19 website.
