Harmonie German Club has cancelled its German markets set for later this month, as some Canberra cultural clubs say their revenue is struggling with the delay to the easing of capacity restrictions.
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The German Club's general manager Paul Berger said the market's cancellation was forced by the ACT government's move to reduce the maximum outdoor capacity from 300 to 100, leaving over 50 suppliers and stallholders out in the cold.
"We just thought if we tried to control 100 people in the outdoor area, they'd have to bottleneck somewhere and more than likely, they'd be bottlenecking on the road in front," Mr Berger said.
"We didn't want to be in your paper for the wrong reasons. We would rather cancel and comply."
The club was forced to cancel approximately $15,000 worth of smallgoods and supplies from small businesses, a move which Mr Berger said is "devastating" for their community partners.
It's the second market the German Club has had to cancel this year, after its planned event in March coincided with the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in the ACT.
The cancellation of that event occurred too late for many of the suppliers, who had already begun production.
"This is business that these guys need... It's [also] all the mums and dads who haven't had the chance. They've got these little market stalls, it's their side income and for some of them, it's their only income," Mr Berger said.
"These guys are desperate - we've been inundated [with stall requests], we had to turn people away for this market."
Stallholder and owner of scented candle business Homemade Creations, Monika Jansen, said it was the second market she'd had cancelled this month.
"I spent the little money that I had left to make a few more products and with both of them being cancelled now, there's no way of even getting that outlay back and selling the stock that I've had sitting around now for the last four or five months," Ms Jansen said.
"There are a lot of people I know who do a lot of markets, they've had nothing coming in now for all this time and they were actually affected by the bushfires also ... We can trust [people] to keep their distance and still enjoy a market."
Mr Berger said the recent rollback of restrictions was frustrating to cultural clubs in the territory because their typical revenue streams lie in gaming, functions and live music which require larger capacities.
"We need to be able to get back to some sort of normal business. And I just feel like the legislation that's in place is just not allowing that to happen," Mr Berger said.
"At the moment, we are pretty much a glorified restaurant ... And that's just not providing enough revenue for us to remain viable, you know, so if this goes on for too long, we are in danger of becoming a statistic."
The Polish White Eagle Club in Turner does not have gaming in their club, which club president Andrew Bajkowski said means they are "heavily dependent" on regular live music programming and functions.
Mr Bajkowski said those looking to book functions had "hit the pause button" since virus outbreaks in Victoria and New South Wales had worsened.
"We've had a lot of [function] inquiries, it's just very, very hard to actually finalise bookings because people are working against the uncertainty of not knowing what the next installment of rule changes is going to entail," Mr Bajkowski said.
Dave Howe, the live music booker for the Polish Club, told The Canberra Times this week that they were unable to reschedule gigs as its capacity load is occupied predominantly by its dining guests. Mr Howe said that if new easing of restrictions allowed them to boost their capacity to 80 people, it may be possible.
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Croatian Club O'Connor president Antun Sep said their business was lucky to be mostly volunteer-run, aside from kitchen staff, after a three-month closure. The club has only been open for dinner time on Fridays since reopening, though once the recently green-lit soccer season starts they expect to open Wednesday to Saturday.
"We don't really worry. We're a big family club; no gambling machines whatsoever," Mr Sep said.
"Funerals, you know, that's where we make money. They come to the club, spend money on the bar, food. That's the sort of thing we live off ... But now we can have 100 people, nobody died."
