Restaurant owners say it’s time to lift dining ban

Hospitality businesses start to chafe under shutdown order

It sounds as if Michigan’s indoor dining ban, set to expire this Friday, will continue in some form. And it’s pushing the patience of local restaurant owners.

“It’s time to allow restaurants to safely open!,” Jim Holton, owner of four restaurants in Isabella and Gratiot counties, posted on Facebook on Tuesday morning.

He cited three metrics the state has cited are key in determining when it’s safe to reopen restaurants to indoor service: disease spread as reflected by cases/100,000 people, test positivity rate and COVID-19 patients as percentage of overall hospitalizations.

The original order took effect Nov. 18 and has been extended twice, the last time until Friday. It appears that it will continue, although it might be modified.

“The goal of the Epidemic Order issued by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is to reduce the spread of COVID-19, particularly as it relates to indoor gatherings, which will in turn reduce the strain on our healthcare system and save lives,” said Lynn Sutfin, spokes

woman for the MDHHS. “We have made improvements in Michigan throughout the ‘pause,’ however, our results have started to move on the wrong direction in recent days, and we remain very concerned about the emerging new ‘UK variant’ that is significantly more transmissible.

“Indoor dining at restaurants remains closed under the current order, and more details about future orders will be available tomorrow. We appreciate restaurants continuing to offer take out services and encourage the public to continue using those services.”

State records show that new cases started coming down in mid-december, but that the seven-day average of new cases has started inching up in what might be a post-holiday bump.

The UK variant, called B.1.1.7, is believed to be more contagious than the original strain that hit Michigan last March. So far, it hasn’t turned up in the state, but it was discovered Tuesday in Indiana.

Some restaurant owners say they can still operate safely with indoor dining.

“The restaurant industry has sacrificed enough,” said John Hunter, who owns Hunter’s Ale House, O’kelly’s and The Cabin. “We have been patient and willing to help during the past ten months. Our employees and suppliers are greatly affected. It’s time to open up and get back to work. We will follow all necessary guidelines.”

One thing that’s made this closure more difficult is that there is less support for restaurant industry employees. In his post, Holton said that as an industry, Michigan’s restaurant workers have suffered more than workers in most other states.

“Michigan’s hospitality job loss is twice the national average measured as a percent working in the industry today compared to February 2020 (last month prior to pandemic),” he said in his Facebook post.

One thing that isn’t available to those out- of-work people since November is the additional unemployment assistance provided by the federal government.

Some of those employees have left the state and aren’t coming back, he said.

“It will be a long time to fulfill all the jobs in the hospitality industry that were lost,” he said.