A WELL-KNOWN businessman has sent a clear message to the state government following the latest lockdown extension: we can't keep living like this.
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Jye Segboer, who owns Tamworth's CH Boutique Hotel, Deco Wine Bar and Restaurant, Hopscotch Restaurant and Bar and The Pavillion Function Centre, believes other arrangements must be made.
The Tamworth Local Government Area (LGA) will now complete almost three weeks of full lockdown, even though no cases have been found within the region.
Mr Segboer it's not viable for businesses to keep surviving with the current lack of turnover, and a better solution must be found.
"It's absolutely frustrating, we can't keep living through lockdown after lockdown after lockdown," he said.
"The government is going to have to come up with a way, other than relying on high vaccination rates, in terms of how regional areas that haven't had any cases can continue to stay open."
With all the talk of 'vaccination passports' to travel interstate in the future, Mr Segboer said officials may need to look at doing that from LGA to LGA in order to keep businesses running and the community protected.
Mr Segboer revealed it will be difficult to maintain the same staff levels for another week of low income.
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"We don't have any casual labour workforce across our businesses at the moment, it's all being fulfilled by managers or by our full-time employees," he said.
"But now the lockdown has been extended we're going to have to review what we do with our full-time staff at the moment."
He said the community has been supporting the business well, but the initial momentum of takeaway orders has begun to fade away.
Trading hours may even have to be changed as the restaurants are forced to find a way to survive on little cash inflow.
"For the restaurant industry in general, the profit margin is anywhere between five to 10 per cent as an industry standard, so there's not a huge amount of buffer there," he said.
"When you've still got overheads coming in that can't be stopped, and when you still have those daily overheads occurring you've got to pay for them somehow so your cash reserves are eaten away pretty quickly."
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