Eaglehawk businesses continue to turn away Melburnians

It comes as Melbourne residents enter their third week in COVID-19 lockdown, and third day of tightened restrictions including a 9pm curfew.

Regional Victorian businesses caught serving metropolitan people or those who should not be in the area can be fined $9913.

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Eaglehawk's Skip's Skateboard Shop owner Albert "Skip" Skipper said it was disappointing to see many people doing the wrong thing.

"It's a real tough one," he said.

"We are just trying to look after our community and we are trying to make sure our business survives and I can keep people employed."

Mr Skipper hoped more people would follow the rules to ensure regional Victoria was kept out of lockdown.

"Right now, I am coming to work to survive, not because I love it," he said.

"It only takes one case to get into the regions for a lockdown."

It was a similar story at Eaglehawk's Star Cinema at the weekend.

Star Cinema programming manager Hannah Morton said staff turned away half a dozen people.

"We had to turn away people who were unable to provide their identification, so although they said they weren't from Melbourne they were unable to prove it," she said.

"That was quite significant on Saturday night and it was frustrating and disappointing for staff."

Ms Morton said the business received some criticism from people at the weekend. She said it was a big responsibility for all staff members.

"It's not part of their job description to ask people for identification," she said.

"We appreciate why it has to be done but there were some people that refused to show their ID and it was just really messy and added a lot of time to the process.

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"It's really disappointing to see and hear that people aren't following the rules because everybody is fatigued and everybody is stressed by the constant changes and updates and all the things that come with COVID.

"We are all in this together and the main goal is to protect regional Victoria - not only is it our moral responsibility but it is our legal responsibility.

"It's really frustrating for people not to follow those simple restrictions."

Ms Morton said the last thing she wanted was another lockdown or harsher restrictions.

"We are not willing to risk the fines but also risk the health and safety of our staff, patrons and volunteers," she said.

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