Unless the government steps in with more financial support, 63% of operators don’t believe they will make it through the next six months of the 10pm curfew, according to the latest weekly Hospitality Leaders Poll. As it moves into its second week, the sense among operators that the curfew will threaten their survival has increased, not least because another 87% believe that customer confidence in returning to eating and drinking out has taken a hit after the curfew was introduced. “The 10pm curfew is a knee jerk reaction that was ill-informed, not validated by evidence or empirical data and is actually making the R number worse in the capital by tipping thousands of customers into the streets and public transport system en masse,” said one operator. “It’s so silly and they should just admit they got it wrong and reverse it.”