A chain of hospitality venues in Lanarkshire are urgings locals to get behind their pubs and restaurants after taking a huge financial hit in recent months due to Omicron.
The latest COVID variant led to strict rules being reintroduced in venues in December, meaning numerous cancellations of festive parties and nights out cost businesses thousands of pounds.
Lisini Pub Co - who own six different establishments in Lanarkshire including Dalziel Park in Motherwell, and Angels in Uddingston - have spoken out over the issue, saying the treatment of local pubs has been "unacceptable".
The firm ended up having to return £30,000 of deposits last month and took the decision to close Dalziel Park until late January in order to redeploy staff to other venues.
Siobhan Edwards from the firm told Lanarkshire Live : "As a group we are quite vocal about hospitality, but generally we've had the biggest rap since this pandemic, and it's just shocking.
"For the First Minister to make us hang on for another week after the last announcement just isn't making it easy for us and we don't know why.
"We probably refunded about the three times the deposits we did in December from when the pandemic first hit, but then we had the cashflow to do it.
"For us returning the deposits is a marginal inconvenience, the major responsibility we have is for our staff, we have a duty of care.
"We are a large employer through north and south Lanarkshire with six businesses. At the peak there is about 320 staff but it's about 270 now.
"And every single one of them have lost hours, pay, salary, and if someone is isolating through COVID, then there family or partner is too. They've not had any financial support for this."
The only indication of financial support Lisini has had since Omicron devastated business in December was potentially securing a grant to help with the droves of cancellations over Christmas, but Siobhan explained this wouldn't even cover their water bill.
She added: "There was an element of safety with the furlough grant but we don't have that now.
"The Scottish Government giving us another week of not knowing what the changes of restrictions are is unacceptable."
In the past two months, the business had around 47 per cent of staff who were all at one point in isolation due to COVID.
And they are now worried about what confidence customers will have in returning to venues now that trading has been decimated at the busiest time of year for hospitality.
Siobhan explained: "It's been a huge financial hit.
"Since March 2020 we're still only trading four days, and that in itself has meant we've lost around 70 per cent of income.
"I'm looking for positive words and positive actions from the Scottish Government to give hospitality a bit of hope and encouragement to get people out there."
There are now fears that the impact on local businesses will stretch to the wider community as firms wait for the next COVID update on rules at their venues.
"The situation we now face ourselves in is completely dire", Siobhan added.
"We were looking forward to a great Christmas and New Year - to try and prepare for the repayment of loans, the deferred VAT, bounce back loans in 2022.
"In 2021 for seven months Dalziel Park had traded at Thursday - Sunday only and we were looking forward to opening seven days a week
"in 2022., Omicron came out of the blue and is highly transmissible, we understand that - we will do everything in our power to help minimise the spread.
"We already had mask wearing, track and trace, excellent ventilation and exemplary health and hygiene systems in place in general hospitality settings.
"For further restrictions and the constant restrictions on the hospitality trade and all the arms that feed off of us without adequate support has left us feeling very exposed.
"The biggest crisis and threat right now is that the current restrictions and isolation periods has meant that many of our staff have had to isolate because of COVID, and we have to make sure all our employees regardless of length of service are not financially disadvantaged, which they will be.
"There is no furlough payments, only COVID SSP but there is a Scottish Welfare Grant which can be used to help people in crisis.
"This is a crisis. We have had people off for 20 days, losing hours, unable to pay their monthly bills.
"Latest evidence shows that you are more at risk of catching COVID in shops/retail that you are in either sporting events or pubs."
Lisini is now calling on the Scottish Government to do a number of things including creating campaigns to aid consumer and customer confidence to support local businesses.
They also urge the government to tap into the Scottish Welfare Grants and help employers to help their employees to mitigate the harm the restrictions have had on them.
And to help ease the pressure following the Christmas restrictions, they are calling for VAT tax rates to be lowered so that firms can stand a "fighting chance".
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