Spalding nightclub owner calls Tier 3 restrictions 'really gutting'
The owner of Spalding's only nightclub, which has been shut since March, has described today's Tier 3 announcement for South Holland as "soul-destroying".
Matt Clark, whose Activ Group of Companies runs XO nightclub, and Imaginarium wine bar, both off Westlode Street, revealed that his businesses are facing a year without income due to COVID-19.
The Tier 3 restrictions mean that Activ's other business, AlleyCatz Bowling Alley, also off Westlode Street, will have to close just a month after it reopened form ten pin bowling and pool.
Mr Clark said: "In all honesty, I'm gutted.
"Obviously, in hospitality as a whole, we just love our customers and we've been separated from them for so long.
"We did everything we could to make them safe and allow them to come back.
"Then we changed again during the November curfew and went through several weeks of substantial work to get people used to the 'new normal'.
"When the Government said that we'll 100 per cent be reopening on December 2, somewhere in the back of our minds we never believed it.
"But we had to prepare as if it was going to happen because this is our best time of the year.
"To be put into Tier 3 is absolutely the worst thing for us and it's really gutting.
"We have one of the lowest infection rates in the country, so it seems desperately unfair to a district that has done the right thing and where businesses have done their best.
"We're looking at a year of no income whatsoever, but there are still expenses to be paid and we've stuck by all of our staff.
"It's soul-destroying for us and it's hard to take in the reasons why the Government has made this decision.
