£10k COVID penalty served up for Salford café

A Salford café has been given a £10,000 fixed penalty notice for breaching coronavirus regulation the day after Greater Manchester was placed under tighter restrictions.

Officers from Greater Manchester Police attended the Nyah café on Phoebe Street, Ordsall, on Saturday, October 24, after a call from members of the public.

They found between 30 and 50 people inside the premises.

The Tier Three COVID regulations at the time, which had come into force the day before, said that people must not meet socially with friends or family indoors in any setting unless they were part of their household or support bubble.

Officers asked the group to leave but were met with hostility and had to call for assistance.

The manager of the café, who was issued with the penalty notice, said the event was arranged for one household of six but more people kept arriving and it quickly got out of hand.

The café describes itself as a beauty café offering breakfast or brunch alongside beauty treatments.

Cllr David Lancaster, lead member for environment and community safety, said he was disappointed to hear of the breach and condemned the hostility shown to police officers upholding the law.

“Salford and Greater Manchester were put into the highest category of restrictions because of the spiralling rates of COVID infection, so to hear of a business breaching those regulations the day after they came into force is very disappointing,” he said.