Mayors confident about terraces reopening

The mayors that head the Netherlands' safety regions are confident about terraces opening on June 1st. More and more people are going out, but they are largely maintaining social distancing, according to the mayors. "The Dutch largely behave fantastically," Hubert Bruls, mayor of Nijmegen and head of the Security Council, the council of safety regions, said on Monday, Hart van Nederland reports.

"The supermarket or furniture sector also managed to take measures. I assume that the catering industry will also succeed," Bruls said after a meeting of the Security Council and Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security.

Bruls does not expect that the opening of terraces will immediately result in fines for people not keeping 1.5 meters apart. "The responsibility for the rules lies primarily with the entrepreneur. We will only enforce with repeated violations," he said. "Only in excesses, if people break the rules and refuse to listen, action will be taken and fines issued."

The Nijmegen mayor called it "logical" that people want to go outside. "That is allowed if they keep 1.5 meters apart. The Dutch largely behave fantastically. It is busier, but that has not led to large-scale enforcement. It is not a violation, for example, to stand in line in front of a store."