Berlin Senate Imposes 11PM Curfew, Clubs React

The Festsaal in Berlin Kreuzberg during Oct. 3, a dedicated day for club culture in the German capital.
Andrea Rojas – The Festsaal in Berlin Kreuzberg during Oct. 3, a dedicated day for club culture in the German capital.
Masks are only mandatory when moving.

Berlin’s Senate has decided to impose a curfew effective Oct. 10, which begins at 11 p.m. and ends at 6 a.m. – a time frame that represents the most important hours for the city’s many night life establishments.
The measures are a reaction to an increasing number of people testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the German capital, according to health senator Dilek Kalayci.
She suggested a few changes to the current restrictions on public life, which got approved by the city’s senate and become effective tomorrow, Oct. 10.
They include the introduction of said curfew and the reduction of the number of people allowed to gather in public as well as privately.
The decision comes despite the fact that a similar curfew has had a devastating impact on an already shaken live industry in the UK.
Berlin’s Clubcommission points out that the stats of Germany’s health authority Robert Koch Institute (RKI) showed how private events were the hotbeds for new infections.
This issue would only be enhanced by the curfew, as people were deprived of official public spaces to gather at.
As Clubcommission spokesman Lutz Leichsenring said, Berlin’s clubs and promoters have been acting responsibly almost without exceptions during these past weeks and months. 
Their event concepts proved that cultural and social events could still take place in a pandemic.
“If Senator Kalayci is now flippantly telling media that she intends to  ‘turn off the nightlife,’ it’s not just a slap in the face for tens of thousands of employees and artists, whose existence is at stake in this crisis. It is also a verbal attack on what has been the socio-cultural identity of this city for over 100 years,” Leichsenring said.
Clubcommission suggests setting up quick-test facilities in front of clubs, where guests can voluntarily take a test under the guidance of trained medical personnel – while keeping the existing government mandates regarding distances, capacities, masks etc. in place, and offering other mitigating measures like cashless-only payments, registering the details of guests and more.
Identifying positives would help curb the spread of infections and take the load of the country’s medical system at the same time, according to a statement sent out by the association.
On Oct. 3, many of Berlin’s clubs took part in a day dedicated to club culture, aiming to prove that events could be held in a viable manner during this crisis.
Each guests had to register for the day’s events, which were all limited in capacity. As far as the Clubcommission is aware of, no infections had been traced back to any of the clubs participating in the day.