With Japan’s fourth state of emergency extended yet again, growing numbers of bars and restaurants that have borne the brunt of curfews say they can no longer afford to comply. Some are simply fed up.
"I feel the government is bullying us,” says one Tokyo pub owner, Yuka Fujishima, who’s chosen to defy the rules. "I just couldn’t take it anymore.”
Public health experts have pinpointed watering holes like Fujishima’s in Tokyo’s Shimbashi neighborhood as potential hotbeds of infection, leading to the emergency restrictions that request them to stop serving alcohol and set 8 p.m. as closing time.
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