Indoor payment for drinks and meals will be permitted however only as a last resort, The MA understands.
Pubs and bars can ask customers to pay indoors in situations where portable card payment or cash payment is not possible.
Outdoor hospitality will reopen from Monday 12 April in the next step of the Government’s roadmap out of lockdown restrictions.
The confirmation comes after pub company bosses and operators said it would be unfair to expect publicans to follow stricter rules on payment than coffee shops and hairdressers.
A ban on indoor payment would also be unfair to rural pubs that had bad wifi outdoors, pubco bosses said.
Trade groups UKHospitality (UKH), the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) and the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII) called for clarity on the issue last week when they wrote to the Prime Minister to oppose “added impractical burdens" on the sector.
Sector parity
Speaking to The Morning Advertiser prior to the confirmation, Admiral Taverns’ CEO Chris Jowsey said it would be a “frustration” should indoor payment be banned outright.
“It’s important we are allowed to take payment indoors as every shop and cafe will be able to do it indoors,” he said.
Admiral Taverns is readying some 500 sites to reopen next week. Trading solely outdoors was a “tricky prospect,” with concerns about the weather and estimations of “non viable or very marginal” trading, Jowsey explained.
UKHospitality boss Kate Nicholls welcomed the confirmation about indoor payment on social media.
The British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) said just two fifths (40%) of pubs in England – 15,000 – would be reopening for outside service, with some pubs unable to reopen until social distancing restrictions had been lifted.
In updated guidance, pubs must now take contact details of all members of a group, rather than just one lead member's, for NHS Test & Trace.