The owner of The Mustard Seed in Gedling has received a fine for repeatedly opening during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The BBC has reported that Nottingham Crown Court has ordered 71-year-old Christine Stala to pay £10,560 in fines plus £11,190 in council and legal costs.
Earlier this year she lost an appeal over a court fine.
The Christian cafe on Main Road was served a closure order in November 2020 after refusing to shut.
At the time England was under its second lockdown – from 31 October until 2 December – which required hospitality venues to close.
Officers previously said they had reports of “40 to 50 people” inside the cafe between 12 and 19 November 2020, and Stala was served with a three-month closure order.
Stala was also ordered to pay a £190 victim surcharge and £510 in earlier court costs.
If it was now ,not a problem to open.
This is a well-deserved punishment. Throughout the pandemic, the owner of this shop filled its windows with conspiracy theories and anti-vax Qanon-type gobbledygook, encouraging people to flout regulations which were in place to protect all of us. The Guardian and other newspapers have traced the sources of the type of material on display to organisations such as White Rose, who have links to far-right groups. Whilst responsible people in Gedling missed loved-ones’ funerals, this business hosted lock-ins of over forty people. The owner should be made to pay every penny for this totally selfish, arrogant (not to mention deluded) behaviour. It is indefensible.
Wow, how seriously ill informed and vindictive you are Big Bamou. Whilst you were happy, obviously to follow the nonsensical measures mooted by the government to ‘defeat’ a virus, some were looking closer at what was happening. It is now obvious the plan was to decimate the small business. This was not about protecting people, this was about protecting big business. You sound like just the kind of small minded little turnip that Gedling is home to.
There you go. A little bit of truth and they can’t handle it.