When it comes to playing by the rules, the rules are simple; you comply or you’re in trouble, but for one bingo boss, those rules are “illogical”, and he can’t seem to get his head around them! What rules are we talking about – the Covid rules of course! John O’Reilly, the boss of Rank Group said It was “impossible” to make future plans when his venues are being what he calls; shut “on a whim.”
Bingo halls and casinos under the Rank Group may be closed in Blackpool in Lancashire (and now Wales from October 23rd), but they remain open in Merseyside, despite both areas being under the toughest of Covid-measures. The former Ladbrokes executive said: “It makes no sense! I can open my bingo halls in Liverpool. But I have to shut my bingo hall in Blackpool. We have been clumsily and inadvertently caught up in misdirected measures that do nothing to suppress the virus, but which have put thousands of jobs and livelihoods at risk.”
More Closures to Come:
O’Reilly whose Rank Group owns 77 Mecca Bingo halls and 51 Grosvenor casinos up and down the UK said all these closures and curfews “are putting the entire sector at risk” and at the same time, it’s wasting tax-payers money and having a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of his staff who now face an uncertain winter without work.
Speaking to the Mail, O’Reilly said: “The impact on colleagues is immense. They are bereft frankly. We’re left in the bizarre situation where we’re contributing to the Treasury in Southport by generating revenues but relying on Treasury support in Blackpool by virtue of being shut down.” More bingo and casino venues will close in Greater Manchester and South Yorkshire with many more to follow suit as new restrictions come into place.
There are plenty of Grosvenor casinos that are able to stay open, but the majority of their takings come after 10pm, and the new rules state that all businesses must close by 10pm! The bingo boss has offered to close the bars to stay open, although his offer has fallen on deaf ears. “Bars and pubs are aggrieved about curfew. They’ve lost a little bit of their day’s trade. But in a casino, it’s savage. The curfew is having a crippling impact on our business with no public health benefit that I can see.”
He continued: “It seems wholly illogical that in Blackpool I can go to the door of the Grosvenor casino, which is on one side of the seafront and it’s shut, and I can turn and cross the road and walk into a public house serving steak and kidney pies and pints of lager and it’s heaving with people. Shutting businesses down on what appears to be a bit of a whim just is another example of how all of this ceases to make much sense.”
Source: “Crippling Coronavirus Rules Just Make No Sense: ‘I can Open in Liverpool but Not Blackpool’ Says Mecca Bingo Boss”. This is Money. October 21, 2020.
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