Taipei, July 16 (CNA) The Kenting Night Market in Pingtung County will reopen Friday and over the weekend, though with fewer vendors than before, as it hopes to benefit from the easing of restrictions under the Level 3 COVID-19 alert.
The night market will be open from 6 p.m. to midnight from Friday to Sunday on a trial basis, nearly two months after it was ordered to close on May 21 because of a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in Taiwan.
The county government will close it down again, however, if disease prevention measures cannot be fully implemented, the county's Transportation and Tourism Department said Friday.
The move came after vendors, who were hurt financially when the market closed, applied to the local government to resume business soon after some COVID-19 restrictions were eased on July 13, said Tseng Chun-hui, president of a Kenting community group, on Friday.
Only 100 stalls will open Friday evening, about one-third the number typically seen before the pandemic, and the number will be kept under 200 until the government lifts the Level 3 alert, Tseng said.
Whether the reopening will bring the vendors economic relief remains to be seen. The night market, which straddles the main road that cuts through Kenting, relied on tourists who visited the town's major beaches.
With beaches still closed around Taiwan because of the restrictions, tourists may not return in numbers to Kenting anytime soon, according to Tseng.
Those who do go will see that precautions are being taken at the market to keep people safe, she said.
Street stalls will be kept 1.5 meters apart from each other, and vendors will be required to wear both face masks and safety face shields at all times, set up plastic shields in front of their stalls, and disinfect their business areas every evening, she said.
Visitors will be required to wear face masks and observe social distancing, and no more than 1,500 people can visit the night market at any one time.
In addition, onsite dining and eating while walking around at the night market are prohibited, and vendors are banned from holding food tasting activities, she added.
Though a cluster infection involving the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 was identified in Pingtung in late June, the county has not recorded a new infection for 10 consecutive days.
