Many South African restaurants took part in a protest today. In some areas, they managed to block the streets with tables and chairs to emphasise their distress and their plight. We live and work in Sea Point, where Main Road has, for very many years, been a restaurant hub. The intention had been to do as other areas had done but it seems that, after pressure from the authorities which would have closed the entire operation, it was decided to protest from the side of the road
We started at an old favourite, arguably the most sophisticated restaurant in Sea Point, La Mouette,
where the owners, chef and staff were at the entrance with placards
Owner Gerrit Bruwer with a placard which tells the score
Supported by his staff
A member of staff from the Regent Burger Bar
Mykonos Taverna staff carrying the message
Another favourite, down the road toward the city, is La Boheme Bistro and La Bruixa with a message for Cyril Ramaphosa
Owned by Faisal Khakoo and his Catalonian wife Anna Rascola, who started their operation on the site with her coffee and tapas bar
La Bruixa, “The Witch” in Catalan, while Faisal was still involved with a restaurant in the centre of the city
Rubbish blown onto the verandah of a shut down restaurant
Across the road from La Boheme, the Congregational Church
No Communion here - is Communion wine also embargoed?
Posticino staff occupied empty tables in a silent protest
Then down to Green Point where Portuguese restaurant Caramba! had a telling display
With empty chairs
Carrying messages for the President and his cohorts
And, finally, Henry and Mari Vigar, original owners of La Mouette,
at Upper Bloem with their staff
On one of their empty chairs, a reminder: the suppliers also have dependants.
21 suppliers with an average of. let us say 30 staff each, who have an average family size of 4 = 2520 hungry mouths
And a final word, silently, a message. A long-established Indian restaurant has not survived
South Africa is one of only two countries in the world who have imposed this disastrous embargo. The other is Eswatini, formerly the huge country called Swaziland with a population af about 1 136 000, less than a quarter of the population of Cape Town
In order to mitigate the damage caused by a small number of miscreants who cannot control their consumption of alcohol and other addictive substances, Ms Dlamini Zuma is threatening the livelihoods of about a million people who work in the hospitality and liquor industries
We are seeing people at our door every day, asking for handouts
Not the ordinary beggars, but repectable people who have lost their livelihoods and are desperate
The virus is a cause, but Ms Dlamini Zuma's draconian edicts make her the mother of potential mass starvation
The wine industry is just as threatened and is also facing collapse
She will be recorded in the history books, along with Genghis Khan, Hitler and her hero Joseph Stalin as a progenitor of genocide
All content © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus
