Indoor dining at New York City restaurants will be banned once again from Monday, Governv.
The decision, suggested by Mr Cuomo earlier this week, is a major blow to the city’s rest restaurant industry, an important economic pillar struggling throughout the year in the face of epidemic restrictions and the national recession.
For months, New York City restaurant owners have warned that their businesses, many of which operate at tight margins in good times, are on the brink of financial collapse. Thousands of workers, many of them low-wage workers, have been laid off since March, and their jobs are yet to be fully returned.
Summer worries are only growing as winter approaches and colder temperatures prevent customers from dining out. Industry groups have repeatedly called for federal or state funding, with restaurateurs and bar owners panicking as stimulus talks continue in Washington.
“Another mandatory government shutdown on New York City restaurants has also caused them unnecessary harm to countless small businesses and hundreds of thousands of workers, especially if it does not go hand in hand with financial relief.” The New York City Hospitality Alliance, said in a statement Monday.
Mr. Cuomo’s announcement came after the week’s messages shifted to indoor dining, which only resumed in late September in New York City.
With an increase in virus cases in the state this fall, Mr Kumo was reluctant to impose the broader sanctions imposed in March, when he limited restaurants and bars to takeouts and deliveries.
In October, the governor said he would only shutter indoor dining in so-called microclusters in the most difficult areas of the state. He changed course shortly after the end of November, saying he would stop indoor dining across the city if the seven-day average test positivity rate was one percent. Then about a week later, he Walked back That statement.
The scatter shot approach, which confused residents and business owners alike, at the time Mr. Kumo repeatedly downplayed indoor dining as a source of infection and instead focused his attention on parties and other indoor gatherings.
But on Monday, Mr Cuomo warned that he would ban indoor dining in areas where hospital admissions are unsustainable, and directed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for centers described as “particularly high-risk” activity in indoor restaurants. .
Then, on Wednesday, one of the governor’s top aides, Robert Mujica, told a news conference that restaurateurs rent and bars are ranked as the fifth or sixth major source of new infections in the state and are among the fastest growing categories contributing to the spread of the virus.
On Friday, Mr Kumo said contact tracing data showed that 1.43 per cent of the 46,000 cases between September and November could be linked to restaurants and bars.
Louis Ferry-Sadurni contributed to the report.
