A CAERLEON pub has been issued with a closure notice for its outside gazebo following mass brawl on town’s high street on Saturday.

The Ye Olde Bull Inn will be required to close the gazebo, which is in the car park, for 14 days but the pub and beer garden will remain open to customers.

In the closure notice, Newport Council said the gazebo “failed to meet the definition of an outside area” and that reasonable measures were not taken to minimise risk of exposure to coronavirus.

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It said: “Within the outside area gazebo, people were not two metres apart and no management was in place to stop customers from moving from table to table as such freely mixing.

“The lack of control of customer also resulted in serious incident outside the premises as customers departed the premises.”

The incident, involving some 30 people – some of which have now been barred from the Ye Olde Bull – happened shortly after the 10pm ‘kicking out time’ on Saturday, October 10.

Following this incident, the Ye Olde Bull will be required to implement certain measures in order to reopen the gazebo.

From 6pm, the Ye Olde Bull will not allowed to take walk-in bookings for the outside gazebo area from 6pm to close on Fridays and Saturdays, everything must be pre-booked.

Other requirements include no tables will allowed to be in the car park area unless they’re in the gazebo, customers must be taken to their table and must not switch tables, there should be no queuing on the pavement outside from 6.30pm on Fridays and Saturdays and last entry should be at 9pm.

The pub had already introduced an age limit following the brawl on Saturday and will no longer allow those aged younger than 21 to enter the premises on Friday and Saturday nights.

However, Newport City Council also said that when the gazebo is operational the premises should be an over 25s venue from 6.30pm to close on Friday and Saturday nights.

The pub will have until October 27 to implement the changes and at which point either the closure notice will be withdrawn, or further action may be necessary.

In a social media post last night the team at the Ye Olde Bull said they would be implementing a membership-only policy for Fridays and Saturdays

The team said: “We have this morning met with Gwent Police and Newport City Council Licensing who have been fantastic, understanding, and incredibly supportive of advising us on our COVID Winter business model – an even better and safer experience for our loyal customers.

“After meeting with the local authorities, it has been decided that our outdoor tent will be closed this weekend, to give us the chance to implement changes.

“However, the Pub, and Garden will remain open for business as usual, so please come and enjoy.”