Scottish Nightclubs Get Around Vaccine Passport Rules by Putting Furniture on Dance Floors

Scottish nightclubs have discovered a loophole in the vaccine passport scheme whereby if they put chairs on the dance floor they are no longer classified as nightclubs and can ignore the rules. This has led to claims that the scheme has descended into “a shambolic mess”. The Telegraph has more.

Lulu, a major nightclub in Edinburgh, has begun marketing itself to unvaccinated Scots by advertising the fact that door staff will not be carrying out checks on whether customers have been jabbed.

Nightclubs and other venues, such as stadiums and concert venues hosting major events, have been legally obliged to check customers’ vaccination records in Scotland since last month.

However, despite describing itself as “Edinburgh’s best nightclub” and being open until 3am, Lulu said it technically no longer qualified as a nightclub under Scottish government rules because it had placed seats on its dance floor.

In several social media posts promoting the changes, introduced at the weekend, the venue boasted that “normal service” had resumed and added: “You don’t need [a] vaccine passport to party with us.”

Under the legal definition, only venues with a space “provided for dancing by customers” are classed as a nightclub, meaning those that install seating instead can claim they are outside the scheme’s scope. Hospitality industry representatives said clubs across Scotland were exploiting the loophole so they could ignore vaccine passport rules.

“SNP ministers should be embarrassed that they designed such a mess of a scheme,” Murdo Fraser, the Scottish Conservative spokesman for Covid recovery, said.

“The vaccine passports guidance is so shambolic that places which are clearly not nightclubs are being billed as nightclubs, and places that are clearly nightclubs are managing to use loopholes to claim they’re not.”

Worth reading in full.

Stop Press: Scottish nightclub owners can locate their nearest branch of IKEA here.

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49 Comments
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jc83
jc83
4 years ago

Fair play to them. Hope more businesses do this sort of thing and make a stand against being treated like utter crap!

karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  jc83

It’s certainly not before time that larger businesses started to stand up to the tyranny
Thus far it’s been left to independent hair dressers to hold the line.

Matt Mounsey
Matt Mounsey
4 years ago

Let’s play Drunken Scottish Bumper Wheelchairs! A farce indeed.

Banjones
Banjones
4 years ago
Reply to  Matt Mounsey

Or musical chairs. Sit down if you’re muzzle-less and the place is raided.

Anti_socialist
4 years ago

Amazing how easily personal ingenuity overcomes technocracy, gives you hope.

David101
4 years ago
Reply to  Anti_socialist

Correct. Now Nic-Sturge-Un and whoever else defining the rules for vax passport checks will look very silly indeed when they have to make an announcement something along the lines of “We’re changing the definition of nightclub to include a having a 3-piece-suite in the middle of the dancefloor”, or “vax passports must be checked even if there’s furniture in an unusual place”.
I mean the whole thing’s like a Monty Python sketch!

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  David101

Yes! It certainly didn’t look like this at the World Economic Forum meetings, with simulated faceless androgynous humanoids scanning QR codes embedded in their retinas to gain entry into open plan work share spaces.
Thwarted by chair. Love it!

realarthurdent
4 years ago

The free market finding a solution, even in the People’s Republic of Nic Sturge On.

Fantastic!

Horse
Horse
4 years ago

I expect the Commissariat of Public Health will write and pass another law this afternoon ending this loophole.

karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Horse

I expect the terms of their licence describe them as a nightclub. The authorities might use that.

TheyLiveAndWeLockdown
4 years ago
Reply to  Horse

CeltLeiter Sturg-E-On will be sure to prevent those economic wreckers of Scot-Juche.

nickbowes
nickbowes
4 years ago

In practice, how does this actually work if you visit Ibrox or Celtic Park ?

Fingerache Philip
Fingerache Philip
4 years ago

There’s more than one way to skin a Scottish wild cat.

PoshPanic
4 years ago

No need for IKEA. I’m sure there’ll be plenty of customers willing to donate chairs.

Cristi.Neagu
4 years ago
Reply to  PoshPanic

BYOC: Bring Your Own Chair

mishmash
4 years ago

I find this embarrassing, the hoops people are jumping through, playing musical chairs with the fascists.
Non-compliance is the only way, and you stand tall and look them in the eyes while you do it.

TheTartanEagle
TheTartanEagle
4 years ago

Ha, glad to see a pragmatic engineering solution to deal cheaply and effectively with bureaucratic f*(kwittery.

Cecil B
Cecil B
4 years ago

The reality is that there is no one to enforce it anyway

The overtime payments for police and council employees have dried up. They have gone back to their day jobs

The dog can only bark, it will not bite

TheGreenAcres
4 years ago

Jabbed or Unjabbed nobody should support this farce.

crisisgarden
4 years ago

I was actually looking forward to unvaccinated speakeasies, 20s style (highly appropriate given we’re in the exuberant latter stages of an economic bubble) but no such luck. Attempts to create a digital papers-please society are so unbelievably inept and illegal that there won’t be any need. Shame.

Nessimmersion
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Anecdotally, there are a lot more garage pub conversions and garden “offices” than a couple of years ago.
Ditto for the home brew beer & wine market.
Many sites seem to sell out really quickly – funny dat!

Almost as if once you escape state control of when you drink, there’s no need to pay tax if you can avoid it.

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  Nessimmersion

There’s nothing quite like unintended consequences! 😉

karenovirus
4 years ago

Anybody been been back to their posts from 2-3 days ago to find significant changes have been made ?

crisisgarden
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

No.. wha gwan?

karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  crisisgarden

Couple of examples highlighted on the previous page.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago
Reply to  karenovirus

I was reading a post yesterday that was marked for ‘moderation’ and then it vanished. Now all you have to do is await ‘that’ knock on the door at 3am from ‘the authorities’…

karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

One of the posts I noticed remains but in a bastardised form. Another I noticed had been turned into gobbledygook but has now vanished, probably just as well.

stewart
4 years ago

Nice story but then again many Jews found ways to get in an out of the Warsaw ghetto and bend the rules they were subjected to.

I don’t have too much confidence in clever skirting of rules as the route to stopping discrimination and oppression. It would all be over much quicker if enough people simply said no at the same time.

RickH
4 years ago
Reply to  stewart

You are missing the key : people have to be convinced for that to happen. ‘If’ away, but this is the hard fact.

timsk
4 years ago

Amidst the relentless doom ‘n gloom comes a little gem of a story like this that warms the cockles of my heart and offers a glimmer of hope that one day this nightmare will end.

huxleypiggles
4 years ago

Murdo Fraser has been a big help. Simply criticising the legislation is a bloody insult.

The SNP are a fascist shambles and the Scottish Tories can only whinge. What a shower.

A statement of “We don’t do ‘papers please’ in the UK” would have shown some gumption at least.

unmaskthetruth
4 years ago

Ridicule and non-compliance are the only way out of this now. Keep up the good work.

Dame Lynet
Dame Lynet
4 years ago

Of course the useless Scottish tory can only whine about the implementation, not the outrageous introduction.

Emerald Fox
4 years ago

“On July 23, 1637, Charles’s new style of worship was used for the first time in Scotland. It went about as well as you’d expect. At St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, a woman named Jenny Geddes famously threw her chair at the minister’s head while he started to preach, shouting, “The Devil cause you colic, false thief!”

They had more balls in those days in Scotland.

Tenchy
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

………..even the women, it would seem 🙂

karenovirus
4 years ago
Reply to  Emerald Fox

I understand that some conforming preachers had turds thrown at them.

David101
4 years ago

Now it’s a virus that likes to have a nice sit-down! This is not only a loophole allowing businesses to stay afloat, it’s also an excellent way to mock a system and show it up for what it is – utterly ridiculous.

Annie
4 years ago

By putting chairs on the dance floor they stop people dancing.
Some defiance. Some night club.

RW
RW
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

I don’t know how things are in other places than Reading but at least here, most customers don’t ever do that. They just keep filling up this space until it’s completely blocked while talking and boozing and maybe, occasionally wave an arm or a leg. Maybe make some mock-dancing selfies as well, but that’s about as enthusiastic as it usually gets.

JockCovidiot
4 years ago
Reply to  Annie

The fact they are even having to do that tells us that footfall is down massively! This is great news IMHO. Not because the club is using this loophole but because THEY HAVE TOO! It shows people are voting with their feet against using vaxx passes heres hoping it spreads.

I am Spartacas
4 years ago

I knew of local shops who remained open during the entire lockdown period by putting a few bottles of Bleach, Disinfectant, Hand Soap etc etc etc in their display window so that if the police did inquire why they were open (which they never did) they would declare that they sold ‘essential items’ – a local bicycle shop who was closed for just one week during lockdown before reopening again declared itself as necessary for essential workers who used bicycles to get to work – the owner confided to me that he could not afford to remain closed – if he did not open he would go bust – he’s business is still going today.

Beefbeefbeef
Beefbeefbeef
4 years ago
Reply to  I am Spartacas

My local off-license started stocking bread and milk during lockdown so that he could be termed “essential”. Love it.

Encierro
4 years ago

I have heard about dancing around your handbag but dancing around your chair brings it to a new level.

JYC
JYC
4 years ago

At last. Some resistance in Scotland.

Catee
4 years ago

Out of interest did/does everybody attending Flop 26 have to show a vaccine passport?

Lister of Smeg
Lister of Smeg
4 years ago

By that analogy then you don’t need a vaccine passport in Jockland to enter a strip club?

LonePatriot
LonePatriot
4 years ago

Our healthcare system is about to experience a tsunami! Potential side effects of jabs include chronic inflammation, because the vaccine continuously stimulates the immune system to produce antibodies. Other concerns include the possible integration of plasmid DNA into the body’s host genome, resulting in mutations, problems with DNA replication, triggering of autoimmune responses, and activation of cancer-causing genes. Alternative COVID cures EXIST. Ivermectin is one of them. While Ivermectin is very effective curing COVID symptoms, it has also been shown to eliminate certain cancers. Do not get the poison jab. Get your Ivermectin today while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com

lorrinet
lorrinet
4 years ago
Reply to  LonePatriot

Thanks for the link.

CiacBiab
4 years ago

The tables will be handy for the drunks to dance on, but they’ll have to issue “security” with protective headgear with all those extra chairs easily to hand for those drunks to use when said security tries to stop them dancing on the tables…