FIR against Mumbai restaurant for flouting COVID-19 norms

Mumbai, Mar 18: Police have registered an FIR against a popular restaurant in Mumbai for allegedly violating COVID-19 rules, civic officials said on Thursday.

A Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) team raided the restaurant Auber-Gin Plates and Pours, located in Breach Candy area, late Wednesday night and collected Rs 19,400 as fine from 245 people there for not wearing masks, they said.

The establishment was not operating at 50 per cent capacity and customers were neither wearing masks nor maintaining social distance, BMC officials said.

Based on the BMC''s complaint, the police registered an FIR against the restaurant.

The BMC''s D-ward has also shut the restaurant for violation of the COVID-19 norms, a senior civic official said.

The Maharashtra government in a notification on Monday said cinema halls, hotels, restaurants and offices, except those related to health and essential services, in the state will function at 50 per cent capacity till March 31.

Violation of norms will result in shutting down of the establishment as long as the central government''s notification of the COVID-19 pandemic as a "disaster" is in force, it said.

Nobody will be allowed inside these establishments without wearing a mask and temperature check, the government had said in the notification which was issued in the wake of a surge in COVID-19 cases in the state.

On Wednesday, Maharashtra reported 23,179 new cases of coronavirus, which is the highest single-day infection count so far this year.

With these new cases, the state''s overall infection count rose to 23,70,507, as per official data.