Restaurant owners have expressed anger over Stormont's approach to Covid-19 rules after large numbers of people were pictured shopping in Belfast on Saturday and Sunday.

It comes ahead of non-essential retail in Northern Ireland being required to shut for two weeks from Friday.

Restaurateur Bob McCoubrey said the scenes were "hard to accept" when hospitality businesses remain shut.

NI's chief medical officer said there is a greater risk in hospitality.

BBC News NI has contacted The Executive Office for a comment.

Chief Medical Officer Michael McBride said: "In restaurants and in pubs, individuals are engaged in different interaction, they are closer together for a longer period of time and the risk is therefore greater."

Cafes, bars and restaurants closed on 17 October, but shops, including those deemed non-essential, have been allowed to remain open during that time.

Last Friday, hospitality businesses without an alcohol licence were allowed to reopen, but must close again along with all non-essential retail at the end of the week.

Mr McCoubrey, who owns the Mourne Seafood Bar, said he could not understand why his restaurant must remain closed during a period when shops are still open.

He retweeted the photo of a long queue outside Primark in Castle Street, with a message that read: "Hard to accept pictures like this when we can't even use our outside area."

"We're just angry", he later told BBC News NI.

"I'm very frustrated. We've been closed for five weeks and we're no further forward in terms of the infection or the pressure on hospitals."

Mr McCoubrey did not witness the queue, but said he has seen similar queues outside Primark in recent days.

Shoppers lined both sides of the street outside Primark on Saturday afternoonimage copyrightCaítlin Webb

image captionShoppers lined both sides of the street outside Primark on Saturday afternoon

The photo outside Primark was taken by 21-year-old Caítlin Webb at about 14:00 GMT on Saturday 21 November.

She told BBC News NI that the queue began on one side of Castle Street, snaked up as far as the Hercules Bar, and then continued along the other pavement into the shop.

Ms Webb said she briefly joined the queue herself, but left after about ten minutes as she was concerned about the situation.

Ms Webb's photo of the queue has been widely shared on social media.

She did not post the picture publicly herself, but sent it privately to a relative via WhatsApp and it later appeared on Twitter and Facebook.

In a statement, Primark said: "Nothing matters more to us than the safety and wellbeing of our employees and customers".

"As we re-open our stores in Northern Ireland in line with government advice, we continue to have extensive health and safety measures in place including a strict social distancing protocol and limits on the number of customers allowed in store," a Primark spokesperson added.

"Dedicated employees and security staff are on hand to help ensure these measures are adhered to.

"We continue to closely follow all safety advice from government across all our stores."
A graphic that reads: What are Northern Ireland's new coronavirus restrictions? Closure of all non-essential retail; Closure of close-contact services; Hospitality only permitted to offer takeaway services; All leisure and entertainment to close (including gyms and pools); Off-licences can remain open to 20:00; Closure of places of worship (except for weddings and funerals); Schools to stay open. Restrictions come into force at 00:01 on Friday 27 November 2020

Another restaurateur described the scenes as an "absolute scandal" and claimed the situation had been created by the Stormont Executive "with your inability to govern our country".

Stevie Higginson, who owns two restaurants in Lisburn and Ballynahinch, said the current rules were a "joke".

"I can't serve 30 guests inside, socially-distanced with sanitiser on every table, staff wearing masks, screens up," he said.

He said restaurants had track and trace systems in place "for every customer" and service would be limited to a maximum of six people from the same household at each table if they were allowed to reopen.

Speaking on BBC NI's Radio Ulster's Nolan Show on Monday, the chief medical officer said: "It is important to realise and recognise the retail sector are putting in place measures to restrict the number of people in their stores to maintain flows in a safe way to minimise contact between individuals indoors.

"The consequence of limiting the number of people indoors is that there may be, where there is demand for a particular retail outlet, there may be individuals outside waiting to come in."

He added: "It is also important that those queues are managed appropriately, socially distanced, but they are outside and we need to bear that in mind."

NI's Chief Scientific Adviser Prof Ian Young said that within the retail sector the interactions of people "tend to last for less time, they tend to be less close and people are not under the influence of alcohol and therefore tend to be more aware of their behaviours".