Restaurants Now Complaining Over Covid Rules?

 This came up in the Hessen news (reported by HR, our public TV folks).

So, here in the state of Hessen, we have the mandated 3G for the most part and some cities pushing the 2G rule.

3G rule: you gain entry into a bar or restaurant only if you are vax'ed, recovered from Covid, or tested).  Well...regionally, they changed the 3G slightly....the 'burger-test' (the free-test) is not allowed for 3G.  You have to do the PCR-test, which isn't free, and typically costs around 50 Euro.  Frankly....you just won't find any idiot willing to do the PCR-test deal.

So restaurants had a profitable deal around Christmas....with private parties held, and in most cases....they probably ten to twenty percent of their yearly income off these Christmas parties (at least historically).

Right now?  Cancellations are coming in.

I would suggest three factors at play here:

1.  If you weren't vax'ed or recovered....you weren't going to pay 50 Euro for the PCR tests to attend your company's Christmas dinner.  So a 100-person situation suddenly drifted down to only two-thirds of the 'team' there, and the incentive to hold the dinner evaporated.

2.  Frankly, everyone now has some element of fear over getting Covid in crowded places.  They also have begun to realize that being vax'ed.....doesn't mean pure and absolute protection.  So why would you go for two hours in some cramped-up restaurant where you might get Covid?  In the 1980s, while here in Germany.....I went to a Christmas party where they pushed about forty of us into a room marginally made for thirty.  About every 20 minutes, we'd have to crack a window open to get some fresh air.  

3.  Restaurants are looking directly at city/state governments and shaking their head.  They missed all of the profits from 2020, and this has marginally been a decent year on making a real income.  If the states had just said the plain regular 'quickie-tests' (free) were the standard....not the PCR tests.....then the landscape would have been an easier sale.  

What happens now?  Fewer company parties....lesser profits....less tax revenue coming into the pot.  It's reality in 2021, and likely to repeat in 2022.