Coronavirus: bars in Hong Kong’s Lan Kwai Fong’s nightlife hub will accept tougher measures if government helps with wages and rents, says mogul Allan Zeman
- Lan Kwai Fong Group chairman Allan Zeman says restaurants and bars are willing to cooperate with more drastic measures by the government
- HKU epidemiologist Gabriel Leung had said government should limit hours of bars if people were not disciplined enough to observe social distancing
The biggest landlord in Hong Kong’s famed nightlife district, Lan Kwai Fong, says he is not opposed to tougher anti-coronavirus measures suggested by public health experts including cutting the opening hours of restaurants and bars in the area, provided the government pays workers’ salaries and offers owners help with their rent.
Lan Kwai Fong Group chairman Allan Zeman told the Post on Sunday that restaurants and bars, which were operating as normal but carrying out extra sanitising measures, were willing to cooperate with more drastic measures by the government to prevent a community outbreak of Covid-19.
But Zeman said restaurant owners should be provided with rent concessions along with compensation to cover the salaries of workers affected. There are more than 100 bars, clubs and restaurants in Lan Kwai Fong.
“The majority of eateries here run as small businesses. If they close at night, they can only survive if the government pays part of the rent for them,” he said.
Zeman’s remarks came as Hong Kong confirmed 44 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, mostly involving travellers returning from overseas, taking the local tally to 317.
Among the 317 confirmed infections, at least nine patients had visited restaurants and bars in Lan Kwai Fong or the nearby Soho area in Central, including four of the new cases reported on Sunday. Another four cases had visited a branch of the fitness chain Pure Group in the area.
