Spanish cops bust supermarket ‘bar’ for breaking virus ban

Author: Agencies

A Tenerife bar owner has been fined for violating Spain’s coronavirus lockdown by serving shoppers at a supermarket next door, police said Wednesday.

Like other bars, restaurants and non-essential shops across Spain, his watering hole in Icod de Vinos, in the Canary Islands, was closed on March 14 when Spain declared a state of emergency to fight the coronavirus epidemic.

With Spaniards only allowed to go out to buy food or stop at the chemist, the bar was lucky to be next to a supermarket, and have a connecting door.

“Although the bar was apparently shut, it had a door leading to the supermarket which it was using to serve drinks,” the head of Spain’s Guardia Civil police said.

Police found three people benefiting from the “hole in the wall” — the bar owner, the supermarket owner and a would-be shopper who insisted he was there to buy dried fruit, local media reported.

Several drinks sat on the bar however, police noted. The owner was fined for breaching lockdown rules there and at two other bars in the town, police said, without saying how much he was fined.