After last week’s swoop on businesses that had only just reopened their doors (click here), ASAE inspectors were back enforcing ‘consumer protection and security’ on cafés and restaurants throughout Portugal, warning ‘this isn’t over yet…’
Targeting Olhão (again!) in the Algarve, as well as Vilamoura and Loulé, brigades alighted on a total of 248 terraces and shops in Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia, Barcelos, Braga, Peso da Régua, Bragança, Vila Real, Figueira da Foz, Pombal, Leiria, Vila Nova de Poiares, Oliveira de Azeméis, Viseu, Covilhã, Guarda, Lisbon, Portalegre, Cartaxo and Peniche.
This time round reports describe how inspectors actually measured the distance between tables with tape-measures.
Seven terraces were ‘closed’, one restaurant was shut due to having clients inside it, and 19 administrative offences were handed out.
In a communiqué sent to press offices, ASAE said it will be continuing to develop “enforcement actions in the defence of consumer protection and security and in favour of healthy and fair competition between economic operators”.
Appealing for the public’s help, APHORT – the Portuguese association of catering and tourism – has asked café and restaurant goers to try and remember to use masks, even on outdoor terraces, whenever they are not in the process of consuming food and/ or drink.
