La Maison Restaurant owner Wassim Saliba hopes hard border closure is avoided

La Maison Restaurant owner Wassim Saliba said the present "soft" closure - which relied on roving police checks rather than a permanent checkpoint - gave him more confidence this time amid the NSW coronavirus outbreak.

Saliba said long-term border closures were devastating for border businesses and communities.

"Deep down I think they understand what they did last time didn't work," he said.

"Hard borders don't work in a community like ours; it's expensive and it's detrimental to businesses.

"I think more logical decisions are being made now.

"It's the 21st century; they closed the border 100 years ago and we never thought we'd see that again.

"It's bizarre what we've had to go through."

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Saliba said at this stage police were not stopping every driver crossing the state border.

"They're going to set up in different spots each day," Saliba said.

"Health-wise, they need to do whatever they need to do to get the outbreak under control.

"But they should be able to do that without stopping every person who lives in the Border Bubble and impacting Border businesses."

In May Victorian restaurants, cafes, hotels and cellar doors had to temporarily shut or pivot to a takeaway service for the fourth time owing to the state's circuit-breaker lockdown.

Saliba said they were now operating for their normal business hours.

He said his staff continued to wear masks and they encouraged patrons to do the same despite those restrictions easing in Victoria.

"We're allowed to have full houses again," he said.

"We can have standing up functions; the tables have turned.

"But we feel for our Albury community too. We live on the Albury side and work on the Wodonga side like lots of others.

"We're open as usual for all of our patrons living in the Border Bubble.

"If you're not from this area, you shouldn't be here anyway."

At this stage authorities have not ruled out establishing a hard border, but the Victorian government and Victoria Police have both praised the present soft approach.

Victoria's Health Minister Martin Foley said the roving border patrol was highly efficient, but if police needed more resources to set up more checkpoints they would.

"VicPol's operational advice is based on learnings from 2020 and learnings brought across earlier this year that a highly-mobile, unpredictable, technology-driven arrangements have been more effective."

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