Egypt’s early closing order jolts Cairo’s night life
The Egyptian government is seeking to preserve oil-generated electricity during the US-Israeli war with Iran, with a curfew threatening Cairo’s identity as a city that never sleeps.
The government imposed new closing times nationwide for shops, restaurants and cafes on Saturday, ordering them to close early.
“This is devastating,” said Cairo cafe owner Youssef Salah.
“This deprives us of our busy times.”
The decision is one of a series of measures taken by the government to ease the effects of the US and Israeli war against Iran, which has shaken the Middle East and the global economy in recent weeks.
While Egypt is not a party to the widening conflict, the most populous Arab nation is one of those hardest hit by the war’s far-reaching repercussions, including high oil prices and disrupted shipping routes.
Early closures will have severe impacts on hundreds of thousands of small businesses on nearly every street, alley and lane across the country.
Some of these, including many restaurants, juice shops and cafes, often operate without interruption.
Salah, a cafe owner in Cairo’s middle-class neighborhood of Sayeda Zeinab, said he had to cut his 35-person workforce by 40 percent.
While the 46-year-old father of three kept his place open 24 hours a day, busy hours continued from the evening hours until the early hours of the new day.
Night shifts have now been abolished, he said.
“This is painful,” Salah said as he closed the doors of his shop at 21:00 local time on Saturday.
But two days after the decision was made, some Egyptians danced around the government’s order.
Some cafes closed their front doors because customers inside were smoking hookah or playing chess, dominoes or cards.
Some took to social media to sarcastically criticize the decision to deprive Cairo of its nightlife.
“Butterfly effect,” Mahmoud Elmamlouk, editor of a local publishing house, wrote on social media after cafeterias closed their doors on Saturday evening.
“The closure of the Strait of Hormuz deprived us of smoking hookah.”
Ayman Harbi, who works at a store in downtown Cairo, called on the government to extend opening hours until at least midnight, saying closing at 9pm was “extremely difficult” for businesses like his.
“During the summer months, our work usually starts after 8 p.m.,” he said.
“Forcing me to close at 9pm makes the workday pointless.”
Business owner Magdy al-Deeb called on the government to reverse its decision to protect employment, especially in cafes and small businesses.
He asked those who might lose their jobs: “Where will all these people (workers) go?”
Society “must protect people’s livelihoods,” he said while smoking a hookah (tobacco-burning hookah) at a Cairo cafe.
The decision to close businesses early also changed the lifestyle of Egyptians, who are used to being able to buy almost anything at any time, especially in big cities such as Cairo and Alexandria.
A night tour of Cairo on Saturday and Sunday revealed that the city’s usually bustling streets had become eerily quiet.
Shops, restaurants, shopping malls and cafes across the country were ordered to close at 9pm for a month.
Measures described as “exceptional” by the government include dimming street lights and roadside advertising.
The government has excluded tourist attractions from energy-saving measures because tourism is a major source of foreign currency for the cash-strapped country.
Exempt areas include the Red Sea tourist centers of Hurghada, Sharm el-Sheikh and Marsa Alam, as well as the ancient antiquities-rich southern cities of Aswan and Luxor.
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