Berlin D2 owner promises ‘well supervised’ brunches this weekend

The owner of a Dublin venue that failed to observe social distancing guidelines has promised that more brunches planned for this weekend will be “very well supervised” to avoid a repeat.

Restaurateur and publican Jay Bourke said that his Berlin D2 venue in Dublin city centre will host a family brunch on Saturday and Afro-Caribbean themed brunch on Sunday.

Mr Bourke said there would be “strict controls” in place to avoid a repeat of the scenes captured on video shared on social media last month that showed customers not social distancing in the venue and crowding around the bar as a man danced on it pouring drinks into their mouths.

He described the incident caught on video last month as “20 seconds of madness”and that there was “never an issue” with us but with social media. The video clips did not reflect how the full event took place where diners were spaced out during the four-hour brunch, he said.

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The upcoming brunches would be carefully supervised with staff operating to “strict instructions” with Covid-19 precautions in place to manage the event, he said.

“It will be very well supervised, very - with a capital V-E-R-Y - or I will have a f**king heart attack,” said the publican, who joked that he was “in exile” abroad over last month’s incident.

Mr Bourke said that he has had repeated visits from the Garda Síochána since reopening the business in July following the lockdown and they were "happy during all of them."

The State's acting chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said last month that the scenes recorded in Berlin D2 bar last month "cannot be tolerated" and he called for a "zero tolerance approach."

Last week the National Public Health Emergency Team further delayed the reopening of pubs that do not serve food, saying that it “simply isn’t the appropriate time right now.”

Mr Bourke disagreed with the delayed reopening, saying that many pubs have invested in ventilation, security and CCTV that makes them sufficiently supervised to reopen.

“It sounds a bit ironic me saying this at this point because I am the enemy of the people at the moment but supervised environments are where people are safest. I mean that absolutely sincerely. A publican’s job is to keep things under control,” he said.

He described the decision not to reopen pubs as “almost anti-logical” because opening all bars would mean there would be more space to accommodate more people.

“More space means more spacing. It is illogical not to let people into the space,” he said.

“The attitude of Nphet comes out of some weird Catholic original sin. We have to get on with our lives.

“We have to learn to live with this virus and that is all about social distancing, and that can happen in a pub too. People are far safer in our bars than on the streets or in house parties.”