'Random customer' took photo of Nicola Sturgeon not wearing her mask in Edinburgh restaurant

A “random customer” took the photograph which forced Nicola Sturgeon to apologise for breaking her own rules about mask-wearing, according to the pro-independence owner of the Edinburgh restaurant where the incident happened.

Nicola Sturgeon apologised to parliament for breaking her own rules

The Stable Bar and Restaurant at Mortonhall faced social-media calls for a boycott after the picture appeared in The Scottish Sun, showing the First Minister without a mask chatting to three women after she had attended a funeral wake for a senior civil servant. She told the Scottish Parliament she had “no excuses” and was kicking herself for the breach.

Restaurant owner Iain Dempster is quoted in The National saying: “A random customer took and presumably sold the photo with no care for the consequences and backlash for a family-run business or its hard-working staff during this horrendous time for hospitality.

“Nicola was a gem as always and spoke to our staff and lots of customers, which must have been hard for her having just come from a funeral, but that’s what we have come to expect of her.

“Yes, she broke the rule but it was only for a few seconds as she was going out of the door, and she just turned back to say hello to the three ladies. Nobody else was near her and she kept her social distancing.”

The paper also quotes a staff member who said Ms Sturgeon had arrived at the wake wearing her mask. “She spoke to everyone there and eventually sat down and took her mask off and had a cup of tea.

“Then it was mask back on and back down the stairs. She was just about out the door when three lady customers waved and called to her.

“There was nobody near her and nobody on the table next to the ladies and we think what happened is that one or more of the ladies couldn’t hear her properly and for a few seconds she took off her mask to say hello.

“If anybody on the staff had seen her they would have asked her to put the mask back on. We were all upset when the picture appeared, and even more so when people went on Twitter calling for the place to be closed.”

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