RESTRICTIONS for pubs and clubs have started to ease, but for many of Leeton's venues, the safety and health of their staff and the community remains a greater concern.
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One of those organisations is the Leeton Soldiers Club.
The club has decided not to re-open just yet.
At present pubs and clubs are able to have 10 patrons inside their venues, but for the Soldiers Club, the doors will stay closed to the public for the moment.
It is the same story at the Hotel Leeton and Wade Hotel.
Most agree allowing 10 patrons doesn't make good business sense when it comes to all of the services that would need to be in place to allow them to do so.
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For the Leeton Soldiers Club, this doesn't just mean having staff back at work, but other contract services that would need to be up and running again for only a limited number of patrons.
Instead, the club will continue to keep an eye on Australia's phased return to the "new norm" and will open when it makes better sense to do so for not just the business and their staff, but the community.
The club has had to stand down some of its staff, but others have been receiving the JobKeeper payments, which secretary-manager Adam McIntyre said was a huge relief for all.
The club estimates every month it is closed, it is losing about $25,000 as a result of not being open.
However, the good news is the club has built itself back up to be in a good position after it entered voluntary administration in 2012.
"We are in a better position to be dealing with something like this than we possibly could have been six or seven years ago," Mr McIntyre said.
"The main thing for us is we want to be doing this properly.
"The health and safety of our staff and patrons is our main priority.
"We know people are wanting to get back to coming to the club, but at the moment the doors will stay closed.
"We will continue monitoring the situation and what the rules and regulations are going to be.
"A lot of our members are those in those in that high-risk category when it comes to the virus, so we need to keep that in mind too."
Mr McIntyre said the board had done a great job in leading the club through the pandemic.
He would also like to see staff undertake significant training before doors re-open properly to ensure they are equipped to work in what will be a different environment to the norm.
"We certainly look forward to the day we can trade again," Mr McIntyre said.
"For us, we will definitely be focusing on that social distancing and it will be something we are enforcing here (once open).
"That's something people will have to become used to.
"For the moment though, we're just seeing what is going to work best here for everyone."
