CRACKDOWNS ON ENTERTAINMENT FACILITIES

[Anchor Lead]

Health authorities Monday night conducted intensive inspections on bars and other types of entertainment businesses, which have been emerging as a key source of cluster infections. They were found to have failed to ventilate or sterilize properly. As a grace period for observing antivirus rules is over, business owners and even their customers will be slapped with fines if they are caught violating rules.

[Pkg]

A team of Seoul city inspectors enters a bar in Gangnam-gu District, Seoul. First, they check whether or not the business properly manages entry logs.

[Soundbite] Seoul city Inspection Team : "Hand-written logs are no longer in use. QR code identifications are now mandatory. Do you know that?"

Entertainment facilities are required to fill in registers after ventilating at least three times daily and sterilizing once a day. But there were violators.

[Soundbite] Seoul city Inspection Team : "Did you keep a record of when you sterilized and ventilated the place?"

Some business owners complain quarantine guidelines change so frequently that it is difficult for them to follow the rules properly.

[Soundbite] Entertainment business employee(VOICE MODIFIED) : "It would have been better if the district office had told us about the changed sterilization rule."

Officials from the Seoul city government, police and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency inspected 89 entertainment establishments Monday night. As the grace period for new basic antivirus rules is now over, inspections on public facilities were also carried out.

[Soundbite] Lee Hee-yeon(Yeongdeungpo-gu Dist. Community Health Center) : "Now, it is banned for only one person in a group to leave his or her name as if to represent the whole team. Did you know that? (Yes, I do.)"

Under the new guidelines, all users of the facilities have to fill out the entry logs. But it is not easy to observe the rule during busy hours. Business owners will be fined three million won and customers 100,000 won if they are found to have violated the standing rule.

[Soundbite] Kwon Young-ho(Restaurant owner) : "It is a little demanding for us, since everyone has to fill out the log. But we will follow the government guidelines well."

Eating is banned at public facilities other than restaurants and cafes. Health authorities will conduct intensive inspections on entertainment businesses for two weeks.