Revisions to our Covid-19 settings mean from next week, vaccine passes are goneburger in restaurants, cafes and bars. So what do those behind the scenes think about the changes, and will any venues keep checking passes?
Last week, the prime minister announced a raft of changes to our Covid-19 response. Those changes meant that as of last Friday, capacity limits in hospitality settings were doubled from 100 to 200 patrons. And, from April 4, requirements to use vaccine passes and scan QR codes will wind up – though businesses can continue to require passes if they wish.
It became compulsory for businesses to display the official QR codes on August 19, 2020, and just over a year later, scanning in with the NZ Covid Tracer app (or manually keeping record) was made mandatory for anyone visiting a place where people gather "consistently and in large numbers", including cafes, bars and restaurants. The requirement to use vaccine passes at venues like gyms, hairdressers, events and hospitality businesses came into effect on December 3 last year.
Just over four months later, the decision to enforce vaccine passes will be left up to businesses, rather than mandated by the government, so it looks like customers will be spending less time desperately trying to locate their phones in bags and clumsily bringing up their vaccine passports at bar, cafe and restaurant entrances. But how are those within the industry feeling about all this?
"We're just agonising over whether to keep vaccine passes in some form," says Dominic Kelly, proprietor of Wellington beer bar Hashigo Zake. They're inviting customers to give feedback and are already considering creative approaches when the rules change, like using vaccine passes on particular days of the week for customers who still want that ritual safeguard. But, if it proves to be more trouble than it's worth to keep them, the decision will likely be made to drop them.
While there have been complaints about the vaccine pass system from hospitality industry bodies and business owners since their introduction, Kelly reckons they've been a useful tool for giving customers worried about the spread of the virus more assurance when dining out. "We know that there are people saying, 'Well, I'll just stay home longer if that's the new condition'," he says of the removal of the pass requirement.
Vaccine passes are gone next week - but should they be? Photo / File
Kelly says there's caution among staff too. Unsurprisingly, workers at his bar don't want to get sick, especially "because we've had our share of it", Kelly says. "Anything that increases the risk that the infection sneaks in here will make [the staff] less happy."
In general, hospitality workers' reaction to the changes has been a mixed bag, says Chloe Ann-King, leader of Raise the Bar Hospo Union.
"It takes away a health and safety restriction, which keeps them safe," she says. But at the same time, it's one less stress on their workload. "It was so hard for some of them to enforce and there was that heightened abuse they got from some customers." Ann-King notes that for many workers, enforcing vaccine passes has compounded workplace stress caused by "chronic understaffing in the industry that was a problem before Covid-19". Having to check vaccine passes could create more "emotional labour" for front-of-house staffers, she adds.
One of these hospitality workers, Anne-Lise Mornard, who works in a Wellington cafe, predicts her bosses will be keen to ditch the vaccine passes once they're able to. While she understands the frustration from those who feel less protected, she feels confident about the incoming changes. "It's a difficult balancing act, so it's unlikely to make everyone happy." For the most part, her confidence comes from the fact that New Zealand has managed relatively high vaccine coverage among our adult population. "This makes vaccine passes a little less justified, in my view, especially considering how much work they are to implement," she says.
Similarly, chief executive of the Restaurant Association Marisa Bidois says the majority of its members are feeling positive about the easing of restrictions. "The feedback we've had from members has been that it is a good thing in terms of getting one step closer to what might be normal trade," she says.
"Hospitality business owners, they're not health experts," says Bidois. "We rely on the experts to give us the advice as to when we should be using these mechanisms [and] when we should stop using them as well."
She's spoken to one business owner who was considering keeping the vaccine pass system in place, but the majority she's heard from will be jettisoning the system as soon as they can. "Our hope is that with the restrictions easing, people will also start to feel that is the right time to be heading out," she says.
Kelly is less sure that Covid-19 health measures in and of themselves are the source of the industry's problems, and says while there have been calls for looser restrictions, "what we've known for the last two years – but everyone keeps seeming to forget – is that confidence amongst consumers is more important than what the law says you're allowed to get up to".
Instead, he thinks there needs to be an emphasis on changing these restrictions to be more workable and useful. If the goal is to lower the risk of infection to people on the premises, Kelly believes there could be more helpful measures to consider beyond vaccine passes and distancing, updated for our current pandemic context.
"I still don't want to get sick, I don't want to get long Covid and I know a lot of people feel the same way," he says. So, he'd like to see updated guidance, support or incentives for hospitality businesses, particularly around air purification and ventilation.
Bidois says she's had a few conversations with members of the Restaurant Association who are looking into the viability of ventilation and air purification. Many of their "businesses are dealing with recovering from two years of subdued trading" and "that investment is reasonably sizeable".
The Ministry of Health website does provide some guidance on ventilating indoor spaces, saying that air cleaning and air ventilation can reduce the risk of infection. However, none of this advice is mandatory for businesses, nor is it particularly well publicised.
For Kelly, it's of particular concern because his bar is subterranean, so ventilation isn't as simple as cranking open a window. "You can't trust people to wear masks all the time, so we need better air," he says.
