Country towns reel after ‘soul-destroying’ restrictions across SA

Small businesses on the Limestone Coast have slammed the South Australian government’s tight restrictions emerging from the seven-day lockdown.

Restrictions for hospitality venues include a density rule of one person per four square metres and seated food and beverage consumption only.

For the Apple Farm, a boutique functions venue just outside Mount Gambier, the restrictions were financially damaging.

Operator Kelsie Prowse said she was “haemorrhaging money”.

“In the past seven to nine days, I’ve had two weddings cancel,” she said.

Ms Prowse said the capacity limit for her venue was 32 which forced the cancellation of many events.

“So, bang; that’s $10-15,000 straight out of my pocket that isn’t going to be in my bank account to help me pay my bills, pay my mortgage, pay my staff,” she said.

‘Some kind of case manager’

Ms Prowse said it felt like small businesses were not being listened to.

“They’re the ones that are making all of the rules and I don’t feel like they’re really consulting businesses as to what we need to keep us going.”

“I have to follow the same rules as big pubs and places that people drop into.”

Ms Prowse suggested “some kind of case manager” could assist small businesses like hers to develop restrictions appropriate to each unique situation.

The Hotels Association says the sector needs to come back at 50 per cent capacity after the lockdown for it to be viable for hospitality businesses to open.

Ms Prowse said it was especially difficult for food businesses to reopen.

“I’d be scared if I did end up going out and spending $1,000s on stock; are the people going to come or am I going to lose even more money?” she said.

Many regional businesses have called for different restrictions for county areas. 

“While I understand the reasons for the restrictions, I feel that in regional areas like ours, that have been unaffected from any contact-COVID spread since March 2020, I feel that it’s really unfair for us,” Ms Prowse said.

“Mentally, we are struggling.

“It is hard to keep positive and it’s hard to keep momentum and motivation happening when we’re trying to homeschool and we’re trying to deal with people that don’t understand how the industry works.”

‘Soul destroying’

It is a similar story of frustration for Geoff Prest who is the co-owner of Robe hotel The Caledonian Inn.

“With the way they’re treating country people and country communities that are hundreds and hundreds of kilometres away from hotspots in city areas.”

Mr Prest described the situation as “outrageous”.

“They’ve had 18 months since COVID hit Australia to develop some strategy to deal with country people and country communities,” he said.

“They’ve not developed one inch in 18 months – we’re still doing the same thing as at the start.”

Mr Prest said the lockdown and ongoing restrictions were “disgraceful” and “killing country communities”.

“We don’t have any COVID cases down here in Robe and we’re still at one [person] per four square metres and it’s an outrageous overreaction,” he said.

“It’s been a ghost town. It’s been an absolute ghost town.”

Difficulty attracting staff

For Ms Prowse, keeping staff employed when functions were being cancelled was a big issue.

“If I can’t give them the work now, then they’re going to go and look for other work,” she said.

“Because of what happened last year [with COVID], I think a lot of people in the hospitality and tourism industry have gone and found other work elsewhere, which has left a huge gap in our market for skilled workers.