Card Payments At Our Markets

Following our first markets back during lockdown 3, we have received a number of messages regarding our current restriction of Card or Contactless Payments. We'd like to explain our reasonings here…

• Cash has to be put to one side for 72 hours or be sanitised prior to being used again by traders, as requested by our Environmental Health Team at Warwick District Council.
• Serve visitors faster. With contactless payments, it takes mere seconds to tap and go, meaning our traders can serve more people in the same space of time as those accepting cash. It also reduces the need for traders to wash hands between every transaction of handling cash.
• Reduce the need for unnecessary contact.

Enforcing this safety measure is not something we take lightly and appreciate not everyone has a credit or debit card. But as a small independent business, we need to ensure we're confident that we're providing a COVID Secure Market for our team, traders, customers and wider community.

Back in 2020 we were used as a Case Study by Central Government for our strict and stringent safety measures and we will continue to implement these throughout 2021 where needed.

When the UK faces a national lockdown, the message is clear; STAY HOME, PROTECT THE NHS, SAVE LIVES. We ask our traders to serve market visitors quickly & safely, so once they've done their shopping, they can leave the market and head home, the easiest way to do this, is to accept card or contactless payments only.

By enforcing the measures above, we can help prevent the spread of Coronavirus.

All of our traders are temperature checked prior to trading and follow strict safety measures in operating. By implementing a cashless market for a short period, during a time when infection figures are increasing dramatically, we know we're doing our small part in preventing the spread of this fast-spreading virus.

In a perfect world, we would be able to keep everyone happy, but we don't live in a perfect world, and we will do what we feel is right for our business.

In a world you can be anything, be kind.

It is also not illegal to refuse cash as payment. In fact, more and more small businesses are opting for card-only as the majority of customers are using debit cards regularly.

Although coins and banknotes are officially classed as a "legal tender", this only applies to settling a debt, not paying for goods in a transactional situation. In other words, it's a requirement to allow cash payments to pay for a debt, but shops & market traders are free to refuse cash as a tender when a customer wants to purchase a product.

If anyone has any questions or concerns, please contact us directly for a chat, we'd be more than happy to explain our reasons for our safety measures.

01926 800 750 | info@cjseventswarwickshire.co.uk