About 2,000 restaurant owners and other small merchants sued the government Friday for a total of more than 161 billion won ($133 million) won in damages for losses incurred due to anti-COVID-19 business restrictions before a compensation law was enacted.

The association of small businesses representing the businessmen filed the suit with the Seoul Administrative Court, demanding compensation for losses incurred from April 2020 until the so-called pandemic damage compensation law was introduced last July.

The law was enacted to compensate small business owners for losses caused by COVID-19 social distancing, such as restrictions on business hours and the size of private gatherings, though damages incurred before the enactment were excluded from its coverage.

The association claimed the law's exclusion of retrospective compensation is unconstitutional, and said it was also filing a request for Constitutional Court review of the case.

The group said about 8,000 more small business owners plan to stage similar damage suits in stages down the road as soon as they fix the estimates of their business losses. (Yonhap)