Police and officers from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department raided 20 restaurants in the district on Thursday afternoon to check if businesses and diners comply with the LeaveHomeSafe app mandate.

During the operation, they found that 12 men and nine women, aged 19 to 64, didn't scan the LeaveHomeSafe QR code before entering the restaurants, for which they were each fined HK$5,000.

As for the restaurants, they were banned from providing dine-in between 6pm and 4.59am, and they must only serve up to two persons per table for two weeks as the operators failed to ensure all diners scan the QR code before entering.

This means these seven restaurants cannot provide dinner services on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day.

Police called on the public to abide by the LeaveHomeSafe mandate to fight the pandemic. If a catering business is caught breaching the mandate, its operator will be charged and sentenced to the maximum penalty of six-month imprisonment and a HK$50,000 fine upon conviction.