The Community of Madrid is going to reopen nightlife until 3 am on Monday, not being able to accept customers from an hour before, with a capacity of 50% inside the premises and the dance floor open outside.
This was agreed at the beginning of the week after the meeting between the Deputy Minister of Public Health and the Covid-19 Plan, Antonio Zapatero, and the Director of Public Health, Elena Andradas, with representatives of the Madrid nightlife associations, in which they formalized the agreement to recover the activity, proposing a reopening with phases and with review every 15 days.
In addition, it was decided to provide bar service, although consumption is not accepted, and maintain a 75% capacity in open-air premises, to which is added the installation of CO2 meters and analyze measures for the activation of bubbles of « safe leisure ».
Thus, the resumption of activity in nightlife subject to the above conditions was approved, in addition to maintaining a safety distance and the use of a mask, except at the time of ingestion of food and drink, frequent washing of hands and cross ventilation.
The Community of Madrid has insisted that this agreed roadmap is designed based on the monitoring and review of the epidemiological situation in the region.
The association of entrepreneurs of nightlife venues of the Community of Madrid ‘Noche Madrid’ expressed its “satisfaction” for having managed to reach this agreement and that Madrid retakes its “leadership” in the pandemic. “It has always made it possible to save health but protect the economy,” said its spokesman, Vicente Pizcueta.
«It allows us to take a step that we have been waiting for 15 months and that is to return to being entertainment venues, we are no longer cafes. On the 21st, that countdown begins very cautiously and progressively, but we are beginning to regain the experience of the entertainment venues, “he added.
For its part, Madrid Foro Empresarial has set itself the objective that the last week of September or the first of October, when the vaccination has advanced, recovers to 100% capacity and the opening until 5.30 am at nightlife.
However, the president of the association and coordinator of Restoration and Leisure of Madrid Foro Empresarial, Tito Pajares, valued this reopening “very positively”, which will be carried out in a “de-escalated, safe and divided into several phases.”
Losses in the sector in these months have reached 2,000 million euros, calculating that a nightclub has faced 30-day losses of 30,000 euros and 12,000 bars in these months. Of the more than 20,000 workers in the sector, some 9,000 have lost their jobs, according to data from ‘Noche Madrid’.
