Posted on 03/15/2021 6:11:10 PM PDT by lightman
The Wolf Administration’s latest relaxation of Covid-19 emergency rules for many public venues wasn’t met Monday with the kind of widespread rejoicing you might have expected at within many of Pennsylvania’s long-suffering entertainment and recreation sectors.
To many operating movie theaters, special event venues and even larger stadiums and arenas, the incremental step-ups in capacity limits still aren’t enough to get them back to profitability, and when overlaid with social distancing requirements, may not make any difference at all.
Many of these businesses have been hit the longest and the hardest from the restrictions put in place late last winter in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
To recap, Wolf said effective at midnight April 4, capacity limits for indoor dining at restaurants as well as fitness centers and certain venues like casinos, malls and retail stores can increase to 75% occupancy. In addition, restaurants can resume bar service, allow alcohol service without purchase of food and once again sell alcohol after 11 p.m.
For other indoor venues, capacity can rise to 25 percent; for outdoor sites, 50 percent. In all cases, strict attention to social distancing and masking is still mandated.
About the best that most business operators reached by PennLive could say was that it was at least another step toward where they need to be. But they said they’re nowhere near the recovery levels yet.
Movie theatre operators were a case in point.
They continued to chafe Monday at administration rules that place them with indoor entertainment venues - where capacity limits are still capped at 25 percent - instead of the 75 percent level to be enjoyed by restaurants, casinos and shopping malls.
“For theaters to even try to begin to make money again after a year of being either closed or at 10 percent capacity, we need to be at 50 percent, 75 percent,” said Gina DiSanto, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Association of Theater Owners.
“I like that restaurants and bowling alleys and water parks and museums and casinos can all be open at 75 percent. But, why not theaters? We have staggered show times. We have social distancing with our seats. We wear our masks unless we’re having a snack of popcorn or something... I mean this is ridiculous.”
Wolf’s office was not able to provide a further explanation on the movie theater rule by presstime for this report.
Operators of private reception halls and event spaces found themselves in much the same boat.
Nancy Leonard, who runs the Carlisle Ribbon Mill event space in Carlisle, is hoping for a brighter 2021 after pandemic closures and cancellations cost her about $100,000 in sales last year. Leonard said she stayed afloat with the help of pandemic grants and an understanding landlord.
But Wolf’s latest revision, by itself, won’t be enough to really change the game.
“75 percent would be better,” Leonard said, whose 200-person indoor venue space will be be among those moving from 15 percent to 25 percent. “It would open us up more to the weddings. Most people want to have 150 to 180 people at their weddings; that’s the average wedding for us. And having to cut it way back is difficult.”
Even bigger players weren’t declaring victory.
From the Pittsburgh Pirates to Hershey Entertainment & Resorts, officials said the new rules will at best prompt a new round of calculations. But with maintaining social distancing being the first priority this spring, few were willing to announce any relaxation of ticket policies.
Quinn Bryner, director of public relations for Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, noted the order doesn’t affect amusement parks, so HersheyPark admissions will continue to be sold on an advance reservation basis when the new season opens April 2.
As for the Hershey Bears, whose American Hockey League schedule at the Giant Center runs through mid-May? “At this point, there would need to be a change to the social distancing requirements in order for us to be able to accommodate significantly more guests for a Bears game at Giant Center,” Bryner said.
And from Major League Baseball’s PNC Park, the view was much the same, with a Pittsburgh Pirates spokesman saying that even with the outdoor capacity limits moving to 50 percent cone April 4, a strict six-foot social distancing policy is going to be the first commandment of stadium capacity for the indefinite future.
Everyone we reached did express some satisfaction that the administration was relaxing the COVID-19 orders for the second time in two weeks.
But for a lot of the hospitality and entertainment businesses, it’s just not yet enough.
Theater operators, especially, are hoping for dramatically looser rules by early May, when it looks like Hollywood will start to roll out a new batch of potential summer blockbusters.
For much of this past fall and winter, “there’s been plenty of movies to play. It’s just that they weren’t big popular movies,” said David Phillips, chief operating officer of RC Theaters, a Maryland-based firm that runs six different movieplexes in Pennsylvania. Now, bigger tickets like “Black Widow,” “Cruella,” and “Fast & Furious 9″ are around the corner.
There is a nervousness among theater owners, DiSanto said, that they may not win this race against the pandemic clock.
Frank Schofield, who books acts for the popular Harrisburg University concert series, said the events that he feels the most certain about are outdoor shows that he has booked for the late summer, starting with alt-rockers Cage the Elephant on Sept. 23 in Harrisburg’s Riverfront Park.
Agility is his watchword for most acts booked before then - especially those up against the 25 percent indoor capacity limit.
“In this industry, we can’t go with close,” Schofield said. “We’ve got to be at full capacity.”
Betty Gallagher, left, carries popcorn and drinks beside Mary MacBeth as they pass by the ticket checkpoint, heading off to see "I Still Believe", one of the first showings at the AMC theatre in West Homestead, Pa. when it re-opened last August for the first time since shutting down at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
Libs cant have you going back to a normal life.
So many of them just got their first taste of dictatorial control.
THANK YOU, O’ Wolf god!! You creepy little man!
?????
Keep your crazy ass East coast shit on the East coast. Been going to movies, taking my 87/84 year old, vaccinated mom & dad to dinner.
The company I work for has major operations in the Carlisle, PA area. I am shocked at the blind obedience of my PA co-workers. Not one has the guts to speak out against Wolf - even privately.
Wolf only thinks that he is a god. He is a filthy Communist not fit to clean latrines.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.