The Great National Assembly Square was today full of owners and employees of the hospitality industry (hotels, restaurants, cafes), who mounted a new protest. They demanded to reopen the public eating places as soon as possible and expressed their dissatisfaction with the National Extraordinary Commission for Public Health’s decision to allow the places to work if they ensure a social distance of 1.5-2 meters between clients. The protesters wore masks and gloves and maintained at least 1 meter between them, IPN reports.

Aneta Zasavitski, president of the National Association of Restaurants and Recreational Places of Moldova (MĂR), assured that the hospitality industry can obey the imposed rules, but need support. “We need the authorities’ support to resume our economic activities so as to be able to pay salaries and to feed the people as we know best, with the tastiest borsch,” she stated.

Entrepreneur Dumitru Cebotarescu urged the authorities to pay salaries to them while they stay at home as all the salary earners who pay contributions to the state budget this way pay salaries to the rulers.

The protesters demanded that the director of the National Public Health Agency Nicolae Furtună should resign as he cannot understand the situation in which those of the hospitality industry are at present.

Earlier this week, Nicolae Furtună stated in a TV program that the units of the hospitality industry will be unable to resume work on June 15 if the number of infections with COVID-19 does not decrease, even if the National Extraordinary Commission for Public Health earlier decided that these could reopen on June 15.

The entrepreneurs assure that they can take care of the health of their clients. They need to reopen as the employees need a job to earn their living.

This was the third protest of the kind staged so far. The representatives of the hospitality industry said the government didn’t at least react after the first two protests.