YEREVAN, JANUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. Speaking at the Cabinet meeting today, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan criticized poor conditions in some restaurants and other venues and called the matter “a highly important civilizational issue”.

“Sometimes you see that a 5-star restaurant has been opened someplace, the chairs are gilded, but when you open the door to the restroom and enter, you think you are in a cataclysmic era. You can’t spend half a million dollars to build the venue and be lazy enough not to spend 50,000 more to have a proper restroom. This is also a matter of urban-planning and construction norms,” the PM said.

Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Suren Papikyan in turn said that natural gas filling stations had a similar problem, but after inspection 80% of the stations have fixed the problem. Papikyan recommended considering a ban on operations in order for businesses to realize the seriousness of the issue.

The PM said all venues that fail to meet standard requirements must be banned until the problem is solved.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan