Beijing’s municipal public security bureau on Tuesday launched a criminal investigation into the owner of a local bar for allegedly “impeding the prevention of infectious diseases” after the government accused the venue of being the epicenter of Beijing’s latest outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus last week, China’s state-run Global Times reported.
Beijing authorities allege that the owner of Heaven Supermarket Bar in the city’s Chaoyang district failed to enforce a municipal protocol requiring patrons to show health codes before entering any public places. The health code is stored through a Chinese government-controlled smartphone app that displays various information, such as the time and result of an individual’s last Chinese coronavirus test.
Chaoyang district’s market supervision department said on June 14 that it had revoked Heaven Supermarket Bar’s operating license and designated the business as “seriously breaching the law and conducting dishonest acts.”
“Apart from the bar owner, Beijing police also filed five other criminal cases, including a bargoer who wandered freely from one district to another, even when told to quarantine at home,” the Global Times revealed on Tuesday.
A health worker wears protective clothing as he looks at his phone near a community that is locked down, after a recent COVID-19 outbreak on June 13, 2022, in Beijing, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Beijing health officials say an unidentified patron who visited Heaven Supermarket Bar among “several bars and nightlife venues in Chaoyang in the days before and after developing a fever” last week is responsible for Beijing’s alleged flare-up of the Chinese coronavirus. Patient zero “has infected at least 183 people in 15 districts [of Beijing] so far,” Agence France-Presse reported on June 13.
Chaoyang is home to 3.5 million people and is Beijing’s most populous district. Beijing’s government had just reopened nightlife venues in Chaoyang on June 6 following a previous Chinese coronavirus lockdown of the district when the Heaven Supermarket Bar cluster infection was detected last week. Health officials in Beijing chose to shut down all of Chaoyang’s nightlife venues again on June 9 to contain the new epidemic.
Greater Beijing had been under various degrees of lockdown since April 28 to curb a previous outbreak of the Chinese coronavirus, though the city’s government claimed it would begin easing the widespread movement restrictions on May 29. Beijing’s last Chinese coronavirus epidemic also began in Chaoyang, though it was allegedly traced to the district’s primary schools.
“Students make up more than 30% of total cases, with clusters linked to six schools and two kindergartens in Chaoyang,” the Associated Press (AP) reported at the time.
“Also Thursday [April 28], residents of two housing compounds in Beijing’s Chaoyang district were ordered to stay inside and some clinics and businesses shut down,” the AP noted.