QCOSTARICA – Considering that it is a “confusing” and “violation of the law” measure, entrepreneurs from the tourism and restaurant sectors will go to court again to oppose the implementation of a QR Code from December to enter shops, hotels, and public activities.
And the fact is that the digital certificate would be in practice difficult to verify, as well as illegal, since it contravenes a precautionary measure imposed by a court, argues the business sector.
“We are studying the legal implications of requesting the certificate on a voluntary basis as announced by the government. We have asked ourselves, what happens if an inspector arrives at a restaurant, sees it full and wants to verify it. The moment the inspector decides to enter the restaurant and begins to ask customers for QR, he would be precisely violating the order of the Contentious Court to establish a precautionary measure,” said Elliot Campos, president of the Chamber of Restaurants and Related Products (Cámara de Restaurantes y Afines).
Businesses that want to operate at 100% capacity for the month of December, must require their customers to demonstrate with the QR code that they are already vaccinated against Covid-19.
Read more: Dos Pinos will require staff and visitors to vaccination against covid-19
The measure announced at the end of last week by the Carlos Alvarado government upset the productive sector, which considers the sanitary guideline as if it were “forced” or mandatory.
This, because the opportunity cost of operating at 50% capacity as required by the government for businesses that do not request the QR code is very high.
A week ago, the Contentious Court issued a precautionary measure against the obligation that the government ordered as of January 8 for the implementation of the QR code.
However, it does not imply that the government and the Ministry of Health can define other guidelines regarding the allowed capacity.
In these situations, each business will have to place a sign at the door that details the modality that it will apply, whether it requires the digital certificate or not, meaning operating at half or full capacity, respectively.
The capacity measure is a “closed” way of forcing all businesses to request the code, since the opportunity cost of not opening 100% in the middle of high season can be very significant.
