A RIVERLAND hotel has returned to a state of “semi-normalcy” after the significant easing of COVID-19 restrictions last week.
The Waikerie Hotel returned to regular opening hours last Monday as the State Government moved to step three of easing restrictions by lowering social distancing requirements to one person per two square metres and removing the cap on the number of patrons allowed in a venue.
The hotel has also reopened its gaming room, patrons are able to drink at the bar and TAB, Keno and lotteries are available again.
Waikerie Hotel general manager Andrew Tyson said it had been “great” to see regulars return to the venue.
“We are very excited to be able to welcome people back to the hotel in some normal sense,” he said.
“While the bar was closed, I’d have people stop me in the street and tell me that they missed coming in to the hotel after work.
“What has been a bonus for us in our situation is that they have eased the social distance requirement which allows us in our configuration to have more people than we have had since the close down on March 23.”
Mr Tyson said although restrictions had eased, the hotel was still unable to operate at normal capacity due to social distancing requirements.
“We still aren’t able to get the numbers consistently that we had before COVID-19, so it’s not back to normal yet and it won’t be back to normal before all restrictions are lifted,” he said.
“We understand and respect the rules and why they are in place, but at the moment we are operating at about 50 per cent.”
Mr Tyson said the hotel had managed to keep the vast majority of its workforce through the forced closure.
“We’ve managed to retain about 90 per cent of our staff all the way through,” he said.
“As a community hotel, we thought that keeping our staff on through JobKeeper was the best option for the community.”
Mr Tyson said locals were “still coming to terms” with being able to return to venues.
“Although it hasn’t been extremely busy, the community has come out, particularly on Friday and Saturday nights when we are starting to get some decent numbers back,” he said.
“We’re happy that restrictions are being eased and hope that everybody does the right thing so we can avoid a second wave and another lockdown.”