Chisme is canceled: This city just banned socializing at ventanita coffee windows
Ventanitas are canceled.
The city of Hialeah passed an emergency order Thursday, placing tight restrictions on how residents can use the walk-up windows where South Floridians regularly meet to drink Cuban coffee and swap stories.
No longer are these venues for social gatherings in a time of coronavirus. Instead, customers may use the restaurant windows only to place and pick up orders, Hialeah Mayor Carlos Hernández said.
“Venanitas are only to be used to place an order or pick up food — nothing more,” Hernández said in Spanish in an Instagram video. “It will not be permitted for someone to stand at the ventanita waiting for an order or drinking a cafecito or socializing with friends.”
Also, all Hialeah residents must wear masks when they are in public — including when visiting the ventanitas, according to two separate emergency orders. If they are placing an order at a window, they must wait for it in their car, the mayor’s action says. But it does not address patrons who don’t arrive by car.
Restaurants will be responsible for enforcing the new orders by calling Hialeah police if necessary, Hernández said.
“Please, we all have to obey this law,” Hernández said.
Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez threatened to close ventanitas altogether more than two weeks ago. Instead, he mandated that businesses must mark off six-feet increments so customers would know how to keep the distance necessary to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
As of Wednesday, Hialeah had the third-most confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Florida — a day after scores of people packed together to pick up unemployment forms outside John F. Kennedy Library in the city.
Until Wednesday, Hialeah police had a deal with a local barbershop for its officers to have their hair and beards trimmed, which conflicted with the county’s orders for all nonessential businesses to shut down to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 4:47 PM.
