Irish Bar Fines Customers Who Mention COVID and Gives Money to Charity

A bar in Ireland is fining customers who merely mention Covid and then taking the money and donating it to charity, Irish Central reported.

The Alt Bar in County Donegal is charging €2 (about $2.29) for each time Covid is brought up in barroom banter among patrons and putting the money in its "COVID fine jar," with all the proceeds going to Donegal Hospice, Irish Central said.

The Alt Bar issued the warning and new rule to patrons on their Facebook page on Jan. 7.

You also don’t need to be in Ireland or around County Donegal to donate to Donegal Hospice as the bar has provided a GoFundMe link to raise €1,000.

“What started off as a bit of light hearted fun has turned into a good way to raise funds for a good cause. Were raising money in aid of Donegal Hospice Company Limited by Guarantee and every donation will help,” they wrote on GoFundMe.

Christopher Moore, co-owner of the Alt Bar, told DonegalLive that the idea came about after patrons were only talking about the pandemic.

"So I plonked the Covid jar on the counter and away we went. A few people were caught, I was one of them myself! By the end of day on Friday, there was €54 raised for charity,” he said.

Moore did say that he and his business partner, Conor McDevitt, are not making light of the whole situation but want to see people go back to enjoying themselves a bit in an Irish pub.

"But we'd like people to enjoy themselves when they do get out for an hour and we've live music planned for tonight so the staff will have their ears open and we'll continue with the Covid jar indefinitely,” he said. "When the time comes then we'll sit down and decide which charity we'll donate to and hopefully the money raised can be of use to someone."

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