Welsh bar owner calls for end to abuse after implementing Covid passes

A Welsh bar owner has called for an end to online abuse after implementing the Welsh Government’s Covid pass scheme.

Suzanne Reynolds, who runs Slipping Jimmy’s Bar & Grill in Newport, said that she has had to hire extra door staff and is “dreading” the weekend after receiving a torrent of abuse online.

NHS Covid Passes became mandatory for entry into large events and some venues in Wales, including nightclubs and unseated indoor areas with more than 500 people, on Monday.

But Suzanne Reynolds who owns the bar which is classed as a nightclub after midnight said that she had been “bombarded with nasty messages” after posting about the change on her Facebook page.

She added that she had to continually stress that it wasn’t her choice and that she could be closed down or fined £10,000 if she didn’t comply.

“I was literally bombarded with nasty messages, people saying I’m stopping people from going out and enjoying themselves, that I should be boycotted,” she told i. “I’m at my wit’s end with it. It’s crazy. It’s not my fault.

“There’s still a lot of people out there that haven’t had a jab, or that haven’t had a second jab, and that’s fine, that’s their choice. But don’t abuse me.

“This is my livelihood, running this bar. I’ve worked six years trying to get it to where it is. We had 18 months of lockdown, and now we’ve been hit with this.

“I’m literally dreading this weekend if I’m honest. I’ve been running this place for six years and there’s not been one day I didn’t want to come into work. Now I’m dreading it.”

‘Anger’

In a post on social media earlier this week, the Music Venue Trust, which champions grassroots music venues, called on people not to direct their ire at the owners of nightclubs and other venues.

“What you should not be doing is posting bile and stupidity on the social media of your local venue, emailing your local venue with hate mail, pushing letters through the door of your local venue calling them Nazis, or leaving death threats on the booking line of your local venue. All of which a cabal of idiots have decided to do in the last 48 hours,” they said on Facebook.

“It’s your local venue, a service to your community, run by local people who care about their community and the people who live in it.

“Your local venue doesn’t make the law. If you’re upset about these restrictions, direct whatever anger you feel is appropriate at the people who do make the law.”