Government Adjusts December Lockdown Rules

On Thursday evening, government gazetted changes to its lockdown regulations for the festive season.

In the previous set of regulations, wineries and wine farms were permitted to offer wine-tastings and the selling of liquor to the public for off-site consumption, from 10:00 to 18:00, from Mondays to Saturdays.

But the regulation has now been changed to only say that wine farms need to comply with the closing time curfew for restaurants and bars – leaving them open to sell at night, and on Sundays.

Elsewhere, alcohol retail sales are still banned on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Initiation practices remain prohibited nationally, except for the Eastern Cape. But initiation practices are now also not allowed in the Sarah Baartman district. Nelson Mandela Bay was previously the only area in the Eastern Cape where initiations weren’t permitted.