Liquor council toasts to reintroduction of normal trading hours
The National Liquor Trader's Council is toasting the resumption of normal trading hours as a good move.
President Cyril Ramaphosa made the announcement last night during his update on the country's efforts to manage the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over the past several weeks, licensed liquor outlets were only allowed to sell alcohol from Monday to Thursday, 9am to 5pm for home consumption.
Two weeks ago, the industry wrote to the president pleading for liquor sales to be permitted over weekends.
READ: What you need to know: New lockdown level 1 rules
Spokesperson, Lucky Ntimane says the return to normal hours will help protect many livelihoods and will allow for some recovery in the industry. "
"We remain hopeful that we will be able to recover the accumulated losses that numbers into billions in the last two months being as the cause of the inability to trade on all these channels," he said.
"We want to recommit ourselves as the industry towards ensuring that we comply fully with all the COVID-19 regulations,but we look forward to the trading period in the festive season but doing so responsibly."
