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Under increased rules covering the North East, it is an offence to meet with other houses beyond a support bubble, but still possible to gather outside under the rule of six.

The Sand Dancer’s bosses were left furious when a group of customers were each given £200 fines by Northumbria Police while they were in the Sea Road venue’s beer garden on Sunday evening.

The business, which says it has spent £130,000 on its outdoor space this year, says other customers left after seeing the fines issued.

Sand Dancer manager Edd Hilton complained to Northumbria Police in the wake of the incident.

These are the rules around meeting friends and family depending on your tier

Manager Edd Hilton said two officers issued the fines while two colleagues and a South Tyneside Council environmental officer were inside offering approval of its measures.

The force has said the fines were scrapped straight away and an apology offered when it was realised they were given error.

Mr Hilton said: “We feel like we've put everything in place to keep people safe since July.

The Sand Dancer has spent £130,000 on upgrading its outside area in the last year.

"They said the outside area was under the same rules as the premises, and that's not the case, because the guidelines say you can meet in an outside area.

“The customers kept really calm when the police spoke to them and were concerned they had caused harm to our business, despite not doing anything wrong.

"There was maybe about 20 others in the beer garden at the time and they all finished their drinks and left because of what happened.

"It's so important for us to keep going. We have around 25 staff, we’re all local, and this pub pays our wages, we use local suppliers, we work with the breweries.”

The Sand Dancer pub has voiced concerns after police incorrectly issued drinkers in its beer garden fines for mixing with other households.

He added: “They have acknowledged their mistake and reversed the fines.

“This still did not reach the other guests that left the beer garden on Sunday night in fear of receiving fines when doing nothing wrong and may now not visit other premises or return as they believe the police were enforcing these rules.”A force spokesperson said: “We can confirm that two fines were issued in relation to suspected breaches of the Covid-19 regulations.

“However, these were quickly rescinded after it became clear an error had been made and we have apologised to everyone involved.”

The Sand Dancer pub's customers faced fines under Covid rules, but have since had them cancelled by police.

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Police apologise after wrongly issuing coronavirus fines to beer garden drinkers

A message from the editor:

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our advertisers - and consequently the revenue we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you taking out a digital subscription.