Nicola Sturgeon has blasted an Aberdeen bar for 'dangerous' queues- following a coronavirus outbreak in the Granite City.
Aberdeen South MP tweeted pictures from Saturday night of Soul Bar in the city centre saying he was 'scunnered' at the flocks of punters packed together on the pavement.
The scenes came days after 13 cases of covid-19 were linked to the city's Hawthorn bar less than one mile away.
The First Minister urged drinkers to 'keep the heid' branding the queues as 'dangerous scenes'.
She tweeted: "Spot on from @StephenFlynnSNP - COVID remains a real and present threat to our health and wellbeing. Scenes like these are dangerous, and could easily result in pubs being closed again - which no one wants. We all have a responsibility here. Please, please everybody #keeptheheid"
The Aberdeen South MP had tweeted: "A bit scunnered by some of the photos appearing online from the city centre over the weekend. Covid-19 has not gone away - as is evident from the cluster linked to The Hawthorn Bar. Should act as the wake-up call some folk clearly need."
Bar owner Paul Clarkson has robustly defended the establishment saying more staff had been hired and that the police had found no issues on their visit on Saturday.
He said: "We have told customers to follow social distancing guidelines until we are blue in the face- we can't go out and physically break up queues so what are we supposed to do?
"The police visited the venue on Saturday night and said nothing at all about the queues.
"The whole reason there are queues is because of the social distancing measures we have put in place.
"We have hired extra staff, the place is being constantly cleaned and we have more door staff on to deal with queues.
"It was a very busy weekend for us and I think the criticism is unjust and unfair on our staff.
"At the end of the day we are trying to get our business going again and it is frustrating for people to walk past and take pictures of the queues without really knowing what is going on."
Health officials have allowed the Hawthorn bar to continue trading despite the finding that customers who visited on July 26 had tested positive for coronavirus.
