Last call for a while? Florida suspends drinking at bars amid surging virus caseload
Florida suspended alcohol consumption at bars on Friday as the coronavirus caseload surged across the state.
The order from the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation took effect immediately. Vendors who derive more than 50% of their sales from alcohol may continue to sell alcoholic beverages in sealed containers for consumption off premises, the order said. Licensed restaurants also may continue to operate for on-premises consumption of food and beverages at tables.
Earlier Friday, the state announced another record of reported COVID-19 cases.
Friday’s executive order fell short of closing bars outright.
Miami-Dade County had allowed businesses that specialize in alcohol sales, like breweries and many bars, to seat customers if they also had food service licenses from the state. Some cities drew a clear distinction between bars and restaurants to keep bars closed.
That appeared to create a loophole for establishments like The Tank, a brewery in unincorporated Miami-Dade, near Doral, with a bar setup that also serves food through an on-site food truck.
Owner Carlos Padron said because his establishment has sold more food than alcohol, he believes he would be in compliance with the new order by staying open.
“I don’t know what the hell is going to happen,” Padron said, shortly after reading the order. “We’re going to continue going as if we’re a restaurant because that’s what we’ve been operating as.”
The owner of Miami brewery Unseen Creatures was eating lunch at a busy restaurant, drinking a beer, when he read about the order that will again close down on-site consumption at his tasting room, but not at restaurants. He had made room for 30 seats in his 2,000 square-foot brewery, while also selling ales to go in cans and bottles.
“This is just not right,” owner Marco Leyte-Vidal said. “We’re operating like any other restaurant is. It makes no sense that they are forcing us to close. ... It’s absurd to me that I’m sitting in a restaurant with way less spacing than we have and they’re allowed to remain open.”
The new order came shortly after Texas, which has also seen a surge in virus cases, ordered its bars closed and scaled back restaurant capacity.
“I think the governor is doing the right thing,” Carol Dover, president and CEO of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association, said in an interview. “We’ve got to get this under control so we can get life back to normal.”
The move also comes days after Gov. Ron DeSantis threatened to pull the liquor licenses of bars that didn’t follow the state’s reopening guidelines.
“If you go in and it’s just like mayhem, like Dance Party USA and it’s packed to the rafters, that’s just cut and dry. That’s not just an innocent mistake,” DeSantis said earlier this week.
Bars in Miami-Dade and Broward have not reopened under coronavirus restrictions. Bars have reopened in the Keys, although several popular ones, including Sloppy Joe’s on Duval Street, have voluntarily remained closed for now.
In a news conference Friday, DeSantis did not directly address the order, though he made reference to it as an example of actions the state is taking to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. The governor said the surging caseload was coming from younger residents — something confirmed by Miami-area business owners and officials.
In an interview earlier this week, Adam Gersten, owner of Gramps bar in Wynwood, which remains closed, recounted seeing crowds of young people gathered in the hip Miami hotspot, many without masks. On Thursday, the city of Miami issued an order requiring masks be worn in all public places.
“I went up to a group, they were in their 20s and 30s and they just said they didn’t care,” he said. “They said their reasoning was, ‘We know the risks, and we just don’t think we need to’ — that they had no family they were taking care of, that they were just going to go out. I assume that’s representative of the thought process of a lot of people down here.”
Albert Garcia, chairman of the Wynwood Business Improvement District, confirmed that a majority of Wynwood revelers were still not wearing masks before Thursday’s wear-a-mask order.
Jonathan Plutzik, owner of The Betsy Hotel in Miami Beach and LT Steak & Seafood, said he believed there remained “a lack of understanding” among some patrons about the risks involved in not obeying preventive measures, noting his staff has had to “spend a lot more time insisting” guests put on masks.
Plutzik’s comments were echoed by Abe Ng, owner of the SushiMaki chain of Asian restaurants, who said that while there was now better compliance, it was not complete.
“About a week or two weeks ago,” he said, “there was a lot more resistance from guests to wearing masks, or just doing simple things like stay socially distanced.”
Herald/Times Tallahassee bureau reporter Lawrence Mower contributed to this report.
This story was originally published June 26, 2020 at 11:53 AM.
