Wagga's hotels and nightclubs are confident they can still host New Year's Eve events despite customer density limits being reintroduced to fight the spread of the COVId-19 Omicron variant.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
From first thing on Monday morning, QR code check-ins will be compulsory, including for hospitality and retail venues.
Hospitality venues, including pubs, clubs, restaurants and cafes will move to a one person per two square metre rule indoors, with no density limit for outdoor settings.
The QR code and density rules will remain in place until January 27.
Romano's Hotel owner Matt Oates said months of living with the previous COVID-19 rules, combined with many Wagga pubs having outdoor areas, would help venues cope with the restrictions for New Year's Eve.
"I think it will affect us, because effectively we are going back to 50 per cent capacity indoors but at the end of the day we have all been through this before in hospitality and we have had to become pretty resilient over the past 18 months," he said.
"If it's what we need to get through it, it's what we need to do.
"We still don't have density limit in outdoor spaces so a lot of pubs are very lucky that they have outdoor areas; [Romano's] is fairly lucky in that we have extended our beer garden down into our car parking areas."
The NSW government went further than expected on Thursday by bringing back mandatory indoor mask wearing and customer density limits in response to rising COVID-19 cases.
Mr Oates said the situation was not ideal but it was still better than returning to lockdown.
"With the case numbers the way they are, the government decided to do something and I suppose it's our job to comply with it," he said.
"It's not something to jump up and down about, it's not something to sing and dance about ... but if it stops another lockdown, then so be it."
Victoria Hotel licensee Harry Vearing also said outdoor areas would help his venues comply with the re-introduced rules.
"The density limits won't hinder new years too much as we can hold 600 at those restrictions and [we] don't usually like to let many more than that in anyway," he said.
"Que Bar will trade pretty well too with 600 capacity and making use of that big outside deck."
In announced the return of density limits on Thursday, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said the government was tailoring its response to fight the Omicron variant.
"The majority of new cases at the moment are in young people; 10 to 39-year-olds occupy 70 per cent of all of our positive cases," he said.
"If you are going somewhere where there is a whole lot of young people, for heaven's sake look after yourselves and don't start hanging too close together.
"As we saw in Newcastle, one person went on a party boat and turned 250 people into positive cases."
Mr Oates said he would simply re-enact his previous COVID-19 safety plan.
"We'll just put everything back into place .. we're not back to one person per four square metres, we're not back to sitting down with masks and double-vaxxed only.
"We're hoping it doesn't get further out of hand."
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark dailyadvertiser.com.au
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters