Fed up with lockdown, Polish businesses open doors in defiance of government.
A restaurant open despite the lockdown in Krakow, Poland, last month. Businesses can face fines of up to $8,000 for violating coronavirus rules in the country.
A restaurant open despite the lockdown in Krakow, Poland, last month. Businesses can face fines of up to $8,000 for violating coronavirus rules in the country.Credit…Lukasz Gagulski/EPA, via Shutterstock
Hundreds of businesses in Poland, including gyms, bars and restaurants, are in revolt against the government and risking hefty fines by reopening despite the country’s coronavirus restrictions.
What started last month with an online initiative called #OtwieraMY, meaning #WeAreOpening, has increasingly been taken up as a call to action by beleaguered business owners.
The movement has produced maps pinpointing the hundreds of restaurants, hotels, cafes and even ski slopes that claim to be open despite measures which require them to remain shut.
The Polish government on Monday allowed museums, art galleries and stores to start welcoming customers again. But sports facilities, hotels, bars and restaurants were told they must remain closed until at least mid-February.
A pub in the capital city — known for its walls decorated with beer caps — appeared to joke on Facebook that it would rebrand as the “Warsaw Beer Cap Museum” so it could reopen. The Polish Fitness Federation, which has been vocal in its calls to end the lockdown, told one local news outlet that almost 1,600 sports facilities had reopened at the start of February in defiance of the ban.
Businesses can face fines of up to $8,000 for violating the measures, but that has not deterred anti-lockdown activists who say their approach has been backed by the courts.
In January, a justification was issued for a decision at a court in southern Poland that had overturned a fine imposed on a hairdresser last year. In that case, the court ruled that there was no constitutional basis for prohibiting conducting business activities, and several other courts have since made similar rulings.
The head of the Polish Fitness Federation, Tomasz Napiorkowski, told the news outlet Notes from Poland that dozens of gyms had been subject to inspections by officials and that no fines had been handed out. But, he said, the federation would not release a list of reopened clubs so as to “not make work easier” for the authorities.
— Anna Schaverien The New York Times