People queue to enter a restaurant on Ocean Drive in Miami Beach, Florida on June 26, 2020.
Chandan Khanna | AFP | fake pictures
The list gets longer.
Governors in Michigan, Florida, Texas, California, Colorado and Arizona are closing thousands of bars again before the July 4 weekend as Covid-19 cases increase in those states.
For bar owners, setbacks have sowed confusion and stress, and threaten the survival of their businesses. Many spent their much-needed cash to reopen, only to close again days or weeks later.
“Stopping and starting cost thousands of dollars for each business,” said David Kaplan, co-owner of Death & Co, a cocktail lounge with locations in Los Angeles, Denver and New York.
The Texas Bar Association and Nightclubs is suing the state over Governor Greg Abbott’s decision to close bars a second time in three months. Dozens gathered in Austin to protest the pushback.
As the United States sets records for new cases in a single day, other states are slowing down their efforts to reopen their economies. New Jersey and New York City have indefinitely postponed the return of food indoors.
Viral videos posted on social media show consumers packed in and out of bars across the country. Meanwhile, several outbreaks have been linked to local bars, including nearly 140 cases in East Lansing, Michigan.
Kaplan said bars that do not impose social distancing measures make it more difficult for bars and restaurants that are trying to be safe. But the economic pressure of the crisis and the limited guidance of government officials also poses a challenge.
“Orientation is very poor, and then enforcement is non-existent, making it difficult,” said Kaplan. “I think most people, if they’re not doing things right, they probably want or are trying, but it’s a totally different way of operating.”
Only Death & Co’s Denver location, which technically operates as a restaurant, is open again. Kaplan’s team spent about $ 3,500 to reopen the Los Angeles bar before halting plans when cases in California began to escalate again. Governor Gavin Newsom closed indoor bars and dinners Wednesday in 19 counties, including Los Angeles.
“We have to find a middle ground, because if we don’t find a route to open, we will face permanent closure,” Kaplan said. “It is not if and when we feel safe, it is if and when we feel that the risk is at an acceptable level and our team feels comfortable to continue the reopening process. Honestly, it is a terrible decision.”
Todd Conner, owner of The Offbeat and The Good Nite bars in Los Angeles, said he was happy to be closed for community safety, but the city made a mistake by reopening the bars so soon. Los Angeles cleared bars to reopen June 19.
“I think they dropped the gun here,” said Conner. “If they had waited, it would have saved me a lot of time and resources, resources that would have been better spent when the day reopens.”
When Los Angeles moves to reopen bars a second time, Conner said he will proceed with more caution.
“For all the ill will back and forth and poor decision making, we are starting to lose faith in the system, which has our backs here,” he said.
Bars vs. restaurants
Some bar owners criticized the decision to treat bars and restaurants differently, despite the fact that many restaurants also serve alcohol to customers.
Todd Quigley owns Craft and Growler, a Dallas-based craft beer bar. While his establishment also serves food, Texas classifies it as a bar. When the state reopened restaurants before bars, its take-out sales went from about half of pre-pandemic levels to about 10%. And now that the bars are closed once again, that trend is coming back, and your Check Protection Program loan money has run out.
“If we are not the same as restaurants, they kill me,” Quigley said, noting that he has obeyed the Covid-19 protocol.
“It is not a restaurant or bar classification, it is owned and managed. And you have to close the places that do not do well,” he added.
In Florida, police officers told several restaurants they had to close because they had bars, according to Carol Dover, executive director of the Florida Restaurant and Accommodation Association.
“Most restaurants, unless it is fast service, will have a bar inside. And therefore there was a lot of confusion on the part of the police that those bars had to be closed,” Dover said.
The setbacks could also mean the suspension of the rehired workers. The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 11.1% in June, according to the Labor Department, with the leisure and hospitality sector gaining 2.1 million jobs, or about 40% of growth.
“I have to decide, do I stay open or not? I prefer to do what I’m doing and keep people out of unemployment, but the state of Texas has put me in a very bad position,” Quigley said. .
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