Canberra bars and nightclubs grapple with 100-person limit

Non-essential indoor public gatherings of more than 100 are temporarily banned in Australia as the country comes to grips with the COVID-19 outbreak.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said measures could be in place for up to six months and venues are trying to keep themselves afloat for as long as possible.

Kokomo's venue manager Isaiah Samau was rostered off on Wednesday but when the Prime Minister made his announcement he came in for crisis talks with his staff.

The 100-person limit is 15 per cent of the two-storey bar's capacity, but the 100 people does not include staff.

"It's not 100 people plus staff, if I have 20 staff I am only allowed 80 patrons and in that sense we have to modify our hours as well to be able to do it," Mr Samau said.

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Mr Samau said Kokomo's intended to stay open for as long as it could.

"Everything is changing hour by hour at the moment so we will abide by whatever the government asks us to do, but we will stay open as long as we can because people get sick of being home," he said.

Civic venues had planned to come together to see how they could help each other out, Mr Samau said.

"It's creating a bit of havoc, not just on ours but all the hospitality places and we are actually reaching out to our other Civic spaces and see what we can do as a Civic community," he said.

King O'Malley's managing director Peter Barclay said he made the "sad" decision to stop live music on Friday and Saturday nights. The bar normally has a dance floor in front of the band.

"It's very unfortunate but we made the decision to put our live music on hold until we are given the all clear by authorities," he said.

"It was very sad but we had to tell our musicians that we can't provide entertainment.

"We still hope people come out and enjoy a pint of beer and a meal and listen to music in the pub."

Mr Barclay said he hoped to make use of both King O'Malley's outdoor and indoor area.

Gatherings of up to 500 people are allowed outside.

He said they had looked at measures such as offering table service to outdoor tables to ensure the pub stayed within the 100-person cap indoors.

Security guards at the pub already counted the number of patrons coming into the pub but Mr Barclay said they would ramp up visual checks inside as well.

"We want everyone to be safe and we wouldn't do anything to jeopardise people's health," he said.

"This is a really difficult time everyone is going through no matter what industry they are in but we should be positive and think about everyone else. We should think about workmates and the fellow business community and more than anything the most vulnerable."

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