Health officials said that dozens of patrons, among them teenagers, contracted the virus following a night out at Tin Roof recently.
FILE: A screenshot of the Tin Roof nightclub in Clarement, Cape Town. Picture: Google Maps
CAPE TOWN – The owner of a Claremont bar disagrees that his establishment is the site of a COVID-19 superspreader event.
Health officials said that dozens of patrons, among them teenagers, contracted the virus following a night out at Tin Roof recently.
Police and the Western Cape Liquor Authority are now investigating what happened.
Nightclubs are still not allowed to reopen under the lockdown.
However, Tin Roof owner, James Truter, said that it was operating as a bar for now.
“Since we opened a month ago, we’ve been trading as a bar. There’s no dancing, no flashing lights, none of that kind of congregation is going on at our venue.”
He said that the young people who were at his bar on the night in question had first gone to other parties and later congregated at Tin Roof.
“A lot of the kids were at parties on that particular evening, were at Tin Roof that same night, so I think we are now being used as a scapegoat for all the events that have been going on over that same period.”
Western Cape head of Health Keith Cloete said that through contact tracing, a cluster of infections was picked up.
“Eighty-nine cases are part of a cluster that could be linked to an incident at the bar. I just want to clarify that the way we identify the cases to a cluster is if someone was at the incident and the contacts of the people that were at the incident, it’s not just that 89 people were physically at the bar.”
