'We'd rather be closed and receiving financial support' say hospitality bosses as Tier 2 sees bars losing more than 50% income

Empty tables outside bars in Leeds city centre this week

Owners of pubs and bars in Yorkshire's 'Tier 2' areas say they would rather be shutting shop than staying open under the new restrictions.

The new tiered-system was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson today (Monday), imposing different restrictions on different areas depending on their Covid-19 infection rates.

Tier 2 - defined as being "serious" risk - was imposed on all wards in West and South Yorkshire, meaning all households are banned from mixing indoors or at bars, pubs and restaurants, with the exception of support bubbles. Merseyside was announced to be in tier 3, with pubs and betting shops to close and two-thirds of wages supplemented by the Government.

But business owners in the Tier 2 areas say the middle-level restrictions are "strangling them", adding they would be financially-better off closing and receiving support than staying open in the current situation.

Mark and Sona Young own Sela Bar in Leeds and said businesses in city centres had already been decimated by the 10pm curfew and orders to work from home where possible.

The couple said they would feel more secure had Leeds been placed into Tier 3, despite having only a small handful of staff to pay.

Mrs Young said: "We are the ones who have done the most in terms of having regulations to go by. We've been putting screens up, doing table service and taking customers' details for track and trace. Then at 10pm, we are forced to throw out a full room of people so they can congregate on the streets outside.

"The ban on households mixing in bars and restaurants will have a huge impact and is having a dramatic effect on takings. Businesses are lucky if they are taking 50 per cent of what they were taking this time last year.

A pub in Liverpool, which has been placed into Tier 3 of restrictions and the hospitality sector forced to close again

"We're in a position where, financially, we would be better off to be closed than in the tier we're in here in Leeds."

Mark Costello quit his job with Yorkshire Building Society to take his brewing business, Horsforth Brewery, on full-time shortly before the lockdown.

He said he was "not even trying" to sell to pubs in areas like Leeds anymore due to the pinch caused by restrictions.

"They’re struggling to pay the invoices for beer I deliver and they’re worried they’ll have to throw the beer away," he said.

Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak during a media briefing in Downing Street

"I’m having to focus almost exclusively on cans at the moment as I can’t afford to waste any batches given the size of the brewery.

"I’m selling to bottle shops and restaurants as well as to homes but can’t think of a pub I’ve sold to for three weeks. We’re also getting squeezed massively by pubs so it’s not financially viable to sell to them at the price they want."

Greg Mulholland, from the Campaign for Pubs, echoed this, saying most publicans he had spoken to were better off at the beginning of the lockdown under the furlough scheme.