The owner of The Malt, Kevin McVicar, has reopened his pub today after 14 days in managed isolation due to a Covid-19 infected customer. Photo / Supplied
The owner of The Malt, Kevin McVicar, has reopened his pub today after 14 days in managed isolation due to a Covid-19 infected customer. Photo / Supplied
The Auckland pub forced to close for 14 days when it was caught up in the latest Covid-19 community outbreak, is open for business again.
The Malt in Greenhithe reopened today and owner Kevin McVicar hopes Halloween activities will bring patrons back to the popular venue on a drizzly greyday.
"I think the weather's going to be a downer," McVicar said. "The weather does not look good but we can't do anything about that."
And while the All Blacks versus Australia in the third Bledisloe Cup test tonight would be too late at a 9.45pm kickoff to bring in the crowds, McVicar remained optimistic about getting back to business as usual following the closure.
"We've just had two weeks of no money coming in so we need to recoup that by being busy, so hopefully.
"We opened at 12 o'clock and it's very quiet at the moment but we don't have anything happening until 3[pm]."
That's when a one-man band will take stage and there will be face-painting for the kids after a Halloween carnival was cancelled in Greenhithe.
McVicar and four other "front-of-house" staff at the pub on the night a marine engineer visited the bar on October 16, and later tested positive for Covid-19, were forced into isolation for two weeks finishing yesterday.
McVicar and one duty manager spent time at Jet Park Hotel while the others self-isolated at home.
None of them have tested positive for Covid-19 and none of the rest of McVicar's staff did either.
In fact no-one else in Greenhithe has as far as McVicar is aware and he puts that down to the likelihood the marine engineer was not symptomatic that fateful night.
There were about 80 patrons at the pub that Friday and McVicar is pretty confident he knows who the marine engineer is.
He said he didn't blame the young man, who caught Covid-19 while working on a ship that later arrived in New Zealand.
Yesterday Health Minister Chris Hipkins announced the Government would introduce mandatory testing for all replacement maritime crew arriving in New Zealand, regardless of their time in transit, from next week.
It comes as more than 400 Russian and Ukraine seaman arrived in New Zealand mid-October on a charter flight to work on fishing vessels.
Within the first three days of their arrival a major outbreak of Covid-19 resulted in their managed isolation facility going into lockdown, with 30 mariners now testing positive for the virus.
McVicar said he would welcome back the marine engineer to The Malt.
However as a precaution he had now set up a "bouncer" to make sure all patrons signed in before entering the pub.
