Hong Kong Sevens fans can drink, but not eat, in stands with staff set to enforce wearing of masks
- City’s sports commissioner says the consumption of food will be limited to specific ‘eating outlets’ at Hong Kong Stadium
- ‘The rugby union will send people around to remind people to put their masks back on after drinking,’ Yeung Tak-keung says
The issue of where fans will be allowed to eat during the Hong Kong Sevens in November is being complicated by the city’s Covid-19 policies, organisers said on Monday.
While rules governing where spectators can and cannot drink have long been in force at Hong Kong Stadium, with alcoholic drinks banned from seats in the upper tiers of the east and west stands, eating has largely taken place as and when it was needed in the past.
That will change this year, with the city’s sports commissioner Yeung Tak-keung saying the consumption of food would be limited to specific “eating outlets”.
“For eating, you need to take off the mask, and we want to reduce and minimise the mask-off activities at the spectator stands,” Yeung told the city’s public radio station RTHK.
Organisers said they were working with government officials on the issue of “where you buy and consume food”, although the whole process seemed “a bit complicated based on whether concessions are operating under a restaurant licence or not”.
Drinking will still be allowed in the areas it always has been, although fans will be expected to keep their masks on when not doing so. How that will work in the notoriously riotous South Stand, or indeed elsewhere, remains to be seen.