Western Cape restaurant manager fined R1,500 for breaking curfew by 7 minutes

The manager of the popular Michael Collins Irish Pub & Restaurant in Struisbaai, in the Western Cape, was left bewildered after being served with a fine for breaking lockdown regulations by seven minutes.

According to the restaurant, the manager (whose name is not mentioned) had just finished dropping off staff and was a kilometre away from home at 9.07pm when she was pulled over and fined for not being at her place of residence after the 9pm curfew.

The government gazette notes: “Every person is confined to his or her place of residence from 9pm until 4am daily, except where a person has been granted a permit to perform a service permitted under alert level 3, or is attending to a security or medical emergency.”

The incident took place on Friday and the viral post has been shared over 2,000 times on Facebook.

“Our staff is already working short time and barely making ends meet," said the restaurant.

“With all the government regulations, all our restaurants are struggling to keep the doors open. Now we have to deal with this!”

The restaurant claimed that the manager was let go almost 20 minutes later and the time on the fine, which is 21:19, was a false reflection of the situation.

“[It] took the law enforcement officer two attempts to fill in the forms. By the time he was done, the time on the fine was 21:19, which is not a true reflection of the situation. The more we accommodate our government, the more they take advantage.”

Speaking to TimesLIVE on Tuesday, Struibaai police station spokesperson Warren Erasmus confirmed that the fine was legitimate. He said the officer was following the law.

“The fine is 99.9% correct,” he said.