Posted on 12/30/2020 1:31:32 PM PST by lightman
Come 8 a.m. Monday, restaurants and bars can reopen for indoor dining at a quarter or half of their occupancy. Bowling alleys, hair salons, museums and casinos can open their doors up to 50% capacity. And other in-person businesses can operate up to 75% capacity.
Hearing that Gov. Tom Wolf announced on Wednesday he is lifting these stricter time-limited COVID-19 mitigation orders he first imposed on Dec. 12 is a relief to hard-hit businesses across the commonwealth.
Wolf said his decision to not extend those orders and returning to the ones in place as of Dec. 11 is based on a plateauing of new COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and death rates in the state coupled with the arrival of vaccines and optimism that the three-week mitigation efforts encouraged people to stay home and avoid social gatherings over the holidays.
Gordon Denlinger, Pennsylvania director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said he believes the governor made a good call in letting the prohibition on indoor dining to expire.
“It’s a tough call, and I acknowledge that there are difficult health and economic decisions to be made,” Denlinger said. “So many of our small businesses are on the edge of bankruptcy, that I believe allowing restaurants and bars to resume operations while following safety and distancing guidelines is absolutely the right decision.”
But it does raise the question for him and others about how long will it last.
As Gene Barr, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry, put it this “yo-yoing of orders” from the governor, always with short-notice, has a negative effect on business owners, their employees and their finances.
“You have the impact, which has happened a couple of times during the summer and then again the other week, where these businesses ordered in food, millions of dollars worth of food that was either thrown away or had to be given away. It was another financial hit to these restaurants because there was no notice,” Barr said.
Denlinger added: ”The concern going forward is if we get two or three days of bad news, will restaurants who are now believing they can resume operations and lay in supplies only to have the governor in a week or week and a half turn around and have to close things down. The governor’s actions have not provided a lot of confidence that this is a green light for any extended period of time.”
When it comes to dealing with the pandemic, Wolf said the only thing that has been constant is the virus itself.
“I have no idea what I will do in the future,” the governor said. “We’re all working in uncharted waters here. We do have a vaccine and the faster that vaccine can get into the arms of people in Pennsylvania, the sooner we’re going to be through any mitigation effort. But none of us knows what’s going to happen between now and a month from now.”
For Barr as well as the restaurant and lodging industry, a source of frustration is what they maintain is a lack of evidence that proves closing restaurants and bars is slowing the spread. He said with indoor seating not allowed at restaurants, people who want to have dinner with friends are going to someone’s house where there is no enforcing of sanitizing, masks and social distancing.
“So it’s not unreasonable to expect you are going to see as a result of these orders some increases” in cases of the coronavirus, Barr said. “We do not believe that the spread is coming from restaurants who comply.”
The uncertainty that surrounds what the future may hold for businesses when it comes to future mitigation orders is something the General Assembly intends to deal with in the next legislative session, which begins next week.
A spokesman for the House Republican majority said his caucus will begin working on an economic recovery plan that puts an end to “these destructive shutdowns and restrictions.”
Its spokesman Jason Gottesman said, “For the past three weeks, Pennsylvania’s hospitality industry, employees, and related businesses have been devastated by another unilateral and unwarranted shutdown from Governor Wolf. Our state deserves better and Pennsylvanians should not have to live in fear of another unexpected and ill-advised shutdown.”
Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Luzerne County, commented in a tweet about the financial hardship the governor’s mitigation orders had on restaurants with it happening during what traditionally is a busy time of the year that helps them pay for slower months.
“As we look at various legislative remedies to help, I am hopeful that we can work together to provide increased support that is so greatly needed,” Baker said.
The Pennsylvania Licensed Beverage and Tavern Association is urging lawmakers to provide industry-specific grants to help taverns and licensed restaurants recover some of the losses incurred as a result of this latest order. Its executive director Chuck Moran further is asking Wolf to lift the order banning patrons from sitting at the bar provided they social distance or have barriers in place.
“Many corner bars throughout Pennsylvania have extraordinarily little, if any, table seating,” Moran said. “This would help the smallest locations survive.”
Businesses are relieved Gov. Tom Wolf is not extending his stricter COVID-19 mitigation orders beyond Monday that limited the number of people entering a business and banned indoor dining at restaurants and bars but business leaders wonder how long it will last.
IN OTHER WORDS, WE'RE BEING CONDITIONED TO "LIVE FOR THE MOMENT"!
Pennsylvania Ping!
Please ping me with articles of interest.
FReepmail me to be added to the list.
THANK YOU MASTER, THANK YOU.
Increasingly restaurants were just ignoring them. Another week and the rebellion would have been spreading like wildfire, putting a serious crimp in his dictatorship.
No one’s gonn’a measure ... just open up
I still cannot believe this is what has become of America.
There is NO WAY that these owners feel a sense of being ‘grateful.’
Grateful for WHAT?
For a lying Health Department official and a scumbag Democrat governor that perpetrated a lie and used them and its citizens as suckers/sheep in an elaborate scheme to steal an election!?
Thank them for their irresponsible and unfounded capricious actions based upon absolutely NO scientific evidence that by wearing masks, imposing social-distancing, forced lock-downs, limiting customers/groups and business hours would make any difference.
Thank them for what????...
1) For the destruction and bankruptcy of businesses?
2) For telling people who rely on free and open commerce who have families to feed and bills to pay... sorry, you can’t work?
3) For lying and fomenting fear and desperation in order to drag on a ‘2 week’ quarantine that was suppose to FLATTEN the curve? But instead was coordinated deception in order to justify a ‘Mail in Ballot’ election!
4) For causing weeks of stress, shattered lives, ruined financial and personal livelihoods, increased suicides, domestic abuse and lives lost unable to get proper medical attention and emergency care?
Democrat officials intentionally and shamelessly inflicted pain and suffering at immense financial and human cost for an agenda... for a sinister plan to defraud their citizens out of their votes, to steal an election from them!
COVID was the excuse!
And these treasonous shits did it with help from the Marxist media, social Big Tech and the legions of Karen’s spreading false statistics, fear and intimidation among the masses so they would submit to a false mission and idea that it’s necessary to save lives!
The Governor, state officials and all who are complicit should HANG!
The new and improved strain of kungflu that has been found will put an end to the lifting of lockdowns.
thanks for lifting the boot ever so slightly from neck
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.