Austria: Woman opens restaurant despite lockdown: "As a mom I am forced to circumvent the regulations"

LINZ. A café operator in Linz, Upper Austria, opened her restaurant on Monday, contrary to the Covid regulations. "I'm a mom, I have a 13-year-old child, I'm a single parent and I have no other option," said Alexandra Pervulesko on Tuesday the RTL broadcaster. She can no longer afford to keep her café closed. They do not receive sufficient support from the state. Since she was in debt, the bank also turned off the money.

On a note on the front door, according to the APA news agency, she asked her guests, among other things, to observe the rules of distance. And: "As a mom I am forced to circumvent the regulations (...) I can no longer look after my child." In addition, she urged "every radical thinker right / left" not to enter the restaurant. Several guests would have gathered inside, most of them without a mask.

After about an hour, the police arrived. The authorities announced in the evening that she had closed the restaurant. In addition, the landlady and 37 other people were reported. According to APA, the guests face a fine of up to 1,450 euros and the landlady up to 30,000 euros.

Pervulesko told ORF that she had the idea of ​​opening her restaurant on Monday despite the ban through an Internet campaign. Dozens of retailers and restaurateurs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland had gathered virtually under the slogan “We open up - end the lockdown” and announced that they would unlock their shops, restaurants and bars.

According to media reports, only a few operators took part in the campaign. In Kaiserslautern and Neustadt in Rhineland-Palatinate, some entrepreneurs and traders demonstrated for appropriate compensation and an end to the lockdown on January 31. In Trier, shop owners symbolically opened the doors of their shops. A few restaurants opened in Switzerland. There were no major police operations.

Source: Junge Freiheit