Story By: Jonathan Macias, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

Newsflash/Manuel Gil

A Spanish company has designed these screens for tables to make restaurants and bars safer by protecting customers from coronavirus.

Manuel Gil from the company Retroreformas in the city of Leganes in the autonomous community of Madrid in central Sapin came up with the idea of setting up methacrylate screens to protect customers in bars and restaurants.

The idea has been launched with the slogan ‘Llena tu Bar’ (Fill Your Bar) and it proposes setting up methacrylate screens adapted to each premises that would isolate customers in cubicles.

The footage shows Gil disassembling the methacrylate screens set up in two tables, a first table ready for four people and another table with the same screens but a more complex metal structure that will keep the table more isolated.

He is heard saying: “It is very easy and if a family that lives together comes they can be disassembled so they can sit together happily”

Gil told Newsflash: “We have heard that the government wants to open restaurants at the end of the year, we want to propose ideas to help restaurants and bars open again as soon as possible.”

According to the renovation company worker the screens could cost between 50 and 60 EUR (43 and 52 GBP) if they are thin and up to 400 EUR (349 GBP) if they are very thick. Gil also said that the initiative intends to make people less scared to go to bars and restaurants.

He told local media: “We have designed these screens in case the government says that we can go to bars but we have to be separate. We want people to see that we are anticipating the government’s decisions and show that if that is the way of things, here we are.”

He encouraged soft drink and alcohol brands to give the screens to restaurants and bars for free if the Spanish government eventually approves them as a preventive measure in order to support the hospitality industry.

Gil told Newsflash: “It is only an initial idea, we assembled them a friend’s bar as all the bars are closed.”

Manuel Gil also confirmed to Newsflash that he will meet with representatives from the local government this week to exchange ideas about the best way to open bars and restaurants in the city once the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.

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