Va. won’t lift 10 p.m. booze curfew for NYE
In light of decision, some local bars to hold traditional Champagne toasts early, offer discounts and play up drink specials
Virginia won’t lift its booze curfew on New Year’s Eve, so as they’ve done time and time again in 2020, local bars are improvising.
To comply with Gov. Ralph Northam’s ban on alcohol sales at restaurants and bars after 10 p.m., some are holding traditional Champagne toasts early, offering discounted to-go cocktail pouches and playing up day drink specials to lure crowds earlier than usual.
“We’ll have hats and noisemakers and all of that sort of thing — as closely as we can replicate the ball drop,” said Phil Smith, whose Brick Anchor Brew-House in downtown
Norfolk will have a complimentary toast at 10 p.m. “We would like to do that for those who can’t be in other locations among loved ones.”
A few blocks down Granby Street, the Irish pub Grace O’Malley’s will hold its own toast “when the clock strikes midnight in Ireland” — 7 p.m. here. Freemason Abbey will have day drink specials, including a sendoff cocktail for this year whose name is almost not suitable for print here: the Screw 2020. They will start being
served at 4 p.m. and are available for carryout along with the bar’s full menu.
Northam’s restrictions on alcohol sales and crowd sizes have frustrated bar and restaurant owners across the state who say they do little to tamp down on the spread of the coronavirus. Under the advice of state health officials, the governor has imposed the restrictions in an effort to keep inebriated people from ignoring social distancing guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“The actions of the Governor and Health Commissioner are arbitrary and capricious,” Bill Dillon, owner of Tampico Enterprises Inc., which does business as the Beatles-themed Abbey Road Pub & Restaurant in Virginia Beach, wrote in a statement he sent to news outlets Dec. 23.
Dillon is suing Northam to challenge his executive orders that have barred indoor dining and restricted social gatherings to fewer than 10 people. The lawsuit was still pending Christmas Eve, online court records showed.
“It’s definitely unfortunate that, among other things, we haven’t been able to get an extension for midnight not only New Year’s Eve, but just in general,” Smith said. “It seems, in some ways, the restaurant business has been scapegoated nationally as the incubator for COVID-19.”