As if publicans in many rural towns did not have enough problems with drought and also general decline in people spending on social activities ; and along comes coronavirus!
Queensland has had a partial reopening and it seems a task force of police in plain clothes from Brisbane went out to Roma and even smaller surrounding country towns and fined publicans for breaches of social distancing and tracing rules. Fines of 5 to $10,000 apparently which is a major expense for the small rural pubs particularly.
The Queensland Police Force is often too undermanned to look into a lot of Crimes particularly the smaller ones and I'm sure that there was many hotels in the Southeast where they did not inspect. The area of Roma and surrounds did not have one coronavirus case either!!
A lot of comments in the courier mail are giving the premier the blame but I suspect some bright spark in the police force has got to cop a fair bit of it. But the level of the fines could be bought home brought home to the Premier!
