Confusion clouds compliance

Hospitality staff and customers are running a gauntlet of confusion and fear while navigating the vaccination pass rules.

Muddled interpretation and patchy compliance is no more evident than on George Street in Palmerston North, where cafe owners say they’re too scared of losing customers to comply with the fledgling guidelines.

Stuff placed an order at each of the 10 cafes and restaurants open during lunchtime on Monday, but only six enforced the rules.

One of them was Cafe Cuba, whose owner Darlene Woodhead had little sympathy for businesses slow to step up to the requirements of the traffic light rules.

‘‘Some complain they’ve been given no information . . . You’re not a child any more . . . go look for it.’’

Woodhead spent half a day last week learning the new rules.

Cafe Cuba staff are asking for vaccine passes as patrons come through the door, either sighting or scanning with a device that has a special app for businesses.

After Stuff was denied service for not presenting a vaccine pass, Woodhead also ran down the reporter outside another cafe, fearing she was trying to get served somewhere without a pass.

‘‘There is so much pressure on business owners to get this right ... no-one can afford the fine.

‘‘We’ve fully owned this place for 10 years and this is the hardest thing we’ve ever gone through . . . the rules seem to change every day, not all businesses are keeping up.’’

Woodhead said misunderstanding of the rules among business owners led to confusion among customers, which risked discouraging the public from eating out.

Barista and Focal Point cafes also scanned our vaccine pass at the counter, while Moxies sighted it.

Cafe Jacko and Cyclista staff asked to scan the pass as soon as the reporter walked in the door.

Two eateries, Indian 2Nite and Cafe 40, requested the pass but

backpedalled when the order became a takeaway. The reporter was allowed to order and wait inside, which was against guidelines.

Indian 2Nite manager Kajal Rama later said it was because she had not had time to teach her employee the new rules.

The restaurant’s owner Sanjay Kumar later called Stuff to seek clarity around the rules. He said he had lost between $5000 and $6000 worth of bookings that week because they weren’t sure how they would verify diners were vaccinated as the app only verified that the passes were genuine.

He said if customers had to provide a photo ID alongside the vaccine pass to prove it was them, ‘‘no-one will come in’’.

Cafe 40 manager Lyn Long shared these concerns.

‘‘We’re scared customers won’t come back. Small businesses in Palmy ... we cannot risk it. It’s so quiet, we cannot afford to.’’

She said the fear of losing customers, or being confronted by them, was greater than the fear of being fined.

‘‘Some customers come in, they get angry.’’

An employee serving us at Afghan Darbar said so long as a customer claimed to have a pass, that was enough.

Manager Wajeha Akbaryan later told Stuff they usually checked, so it must have been a mistake.

Kapadokya Kebabs didn’t ask to see a vaccine pass, even when the reporter asked to dine inside.

An employee, who did not want to be named, later told Stuff staff knew they needed to ask for passes, and it must have been a mistake.

To minimise confusion, the Restaurant Association is regularly updating members when rules are updated.

Association chief executive Marisa Bidois said a survey of 500 business owners on Monday found 73 per cent had an uneasy transition into the new system.

Not every vaccine pass needed to be verified as legitimate when sighted, it was up to staff, while people without a vaccine pass had to arrange contactless takeaway.

The Government has yet to clarify what proportion of customers need to have their vaccine passes verified, and on December 3 flipped its stance to allow unvaccinated workers in some hospitality scenarios.