The Lagos state government has relaxed the lockdown imposed on event centres in the Hospitality and Tourism industry due to the spread of COVID-19 in the state.
State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Mrs Uzamat Akinbile-Yusuf, disclosed this during a live Instagram session on Sunday.
She declared that event centres are free to re-open for business once they registered with the state government through its newly introduced Register-to-Open initiative.
The commissioner explained that the new guideline was meant to ascertain the safety preparedness of the establishments before they are allowed to re-open for business.
Akinbile-Yusuf explained that at-most one-fifth of the capacity of the centre should house not more than 500 persons.
In her words: “This depends on the size of the event hall, if it is going to one-fifth of the normal occupancy level of each venue, then that is fine but no matter how big the event hall, it cannot occupy more than 500 people at a time, that is what the guideline says.
“This is not about 20 individuals in a building now, what we are saying is that one can have at-most one-fifth of the capacity of the hall. If you have a large event hall that can accommodate as many as 5,000, the maximum one cannot exceed is more than 500 at a time.”
THE Commissioner concluded: “We have global guidelines that deal with both social and religious centres but we have specific ones for certain categories.”