Gold Coast restaurant owner to defy vaccination mandates
Glen Day who operator of Pancakes in Paradise, Surfers Paradise and Coolangatta, Montezuma’s Surfers Paradise and The Aztec Broadbeach and Coolangatta will openly defy Queensland’s vaccination mandates.
Day has justified his stance, citing the $3 million to $4 million in revenue he has lost due to lockdowns and border closures.
Day is the ex-chair of the Restaurant Industry Support Group Gold Coast, a position he held for a decade.
He says the mandate is unfairly geared toward the hospitality industry.
“The government is making it very difficult for small business, it seems to be the only one hit with this mandate, especially hospitality,” he said.
“I can’t understand why unvaccinated people can’t go into a restaurant when they can get their hair done, when they can go to gyms.”
Day will not police vaccination status or QR code check-ins and will accept bookings from unvaccinated parties or parties that included unvaccinated people.
“It’s not our job to screen people, it never has been and never will be, I don’t intend to screen people. That will be (the government’s) prerogative,” he said, “If the government wants that done they can have a policeman on the door.
“I’m not vaccinated myself, purely by choice … I don’t think they’ve got it right yet,” Day said.
Without a vaccination, Day will not legally be able to enter into his own venues.
“We’ll definitely try to abide by (the mandate) and do as much as possible that we can do to please the government,” Mr Day said.
“But I’m not paying an extra staff member to stand on the door … we still get really busy on the weekends … you can’t just physically check them all.”
Day was hit hard by the lockdowns and lack of tourism.
“I haven’t made any money for two years, I’ve borrowed a lot to keep going,” he said.
“If I can’t have everyone come into my restaurant, that’s limiting me again to run my business.
“And staffing is very hard to get now, usually at Christmas time I run about 90 staff. At the moment I’ve got 45, and if I have to put any of those off, I won’t have enough staff to open.”
“If my staff tell me they’re vaccinated that’s good enough for me.”
Day has previously spoken at a local anti-mandate group.
He does not have the support of police and is likely to be fined.
“This is a big picture, it’s not only around the mandate, and it’s not around the directions. It’s around people’s health,” Supt Wildman said.
“Those officers will be tasked specifically to look at non-compliance and that’s not only businesses but also the individuals, remembering the focus is very much on the individuals.
“It is the individual’s requirement to check in and comply with those directions.
“The businesses we will support in attempting to achieve the Chief Health Officer’s outcomes.
“We will always stick to the triple C approach: Which is that compassion, communication, compliance, and we also reinforce that businesses that continually disobey the direction they’re the ones likely to face enforcement activities.”
Compliance will be targeted from Friday.
AHD - 15th December 2021
