Wetherspoon’s plans to reopen its pubs ‘in or around June’ after being closed in coronavirus lockdown
- Pub chain forced to shut all 900 pubs and furlough 40,000 workers in March
- Outspoken chairman Tim Martin claimed closing pubs was ‘over the top’
- One Wetherspoon in south London was spray painted with ‘pay your staff’
- Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19
Wetherspoon’s plans to start re-opening its pubs and hotels ‘in or around June’, it was revealed today.
Chairman Tim Martin was forced to close all 900 pubs and furlough 40,000 workers before Britain went on lockdown.
He was among the last on the High Street to shut up shop, with drinkers downing their final pints on March 20 – just three days before a shutdown was imposed by law.
There were threats to stage a nationwide boycott of the chain when Mr Martin claimed closing pubs was ‘over the top’ and that supermarkets posed a bigger risk of spreading coronavirus than bars.
He later refused to pay workers until he received the appropriate government bailout and sparked further fury and accusations of hypocrisy when he told workers to get jobs at Tesco instead.
Wetherspoons is planning to re-open its pubs and hotel nationwide ‘in or around June’
Chairman Tim Martin (pictured with Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July last year) was forced to close all 900 pubs and furlough 40,000 workers when Britain went on lockdown on March 23
His pub in Crystal Palace, south London, was daubed with the words ‘pay your staff’ after the Brexit-backing boss refused to pay staff until his government money came through.
Today JD Wetherspoon said it aims to raise £141million as part of a share placement scheme so it can re-open as the summer begins.
The company said it would raise the amount through the issue of up to 15.7 million shares at 900 pence per share.
Mr Martin, a Conservative Party donor and ardent Brexiteer, caused even more controversy last month when he said he would catch coronavirus because his ‘chances are good’.
Drinkers are pictured at JJ Moon’s in Tooting, south London, on March 20, the final day Wetherspoon was open nationwide
The 64-year-old said: ‘If someone offered me the opportunity now to have it under supervised conditions, I think I’d probably take it because your chances are very, very good.’
He told Sky at the time: ‘Supermarkets are very, very crowded. Pubs are much less crowded.
‘There’s hardly been any transmission of the virus within pubs and I think it’s over the top to shut them. That’s a commercial view but also a common sense view.’
He claimed that a nationwide shutdown was ‘draconian’ and that it didn’t offer ‘health benefits’.
A Wetherspoon pub in Crystal Palace, south London, (pictured) was daubed with the words ‘pay your staff’ after the Brexit-backing boss refused to pay workers until he had received a Government bailout