Restrictions affect rec sports and gyms: ‘It’s going to annihilate us.’

Anne Arundel County ruling affects variety of businesses, locations

All organized sports and practices, including at private schools and in school and church gyms, will be suspended at 5 p.m. on Wednesday as part of a new round of coronavirus restrictions announced Thursday by Anne Arundel County executive Steuart Pittman.

Indoor ice rinks, indoor theaters, bowling alleys, performance venues, pool halls and roller rinks will also be closed, and fitness centers will reduce capacity to 25% and require masks. Gyms also cannot have group fitness activities.

Most youth sports, including basketball, wrestling and volleyball, were suspended in mid-November, but some lower-risk sports, such as youth swimming, had continued.

The new restrictions also included moving retail to 25% capacity and bars and restaurants to take-out only.

“Sports are an important part of many people’s lives in Anne Arundel County,” Recreation and Parks deputy director Jessica Leys said. “Hopefully by putting these restrictions in place now we will be able to flatten the curve and get back to playing organized athletics sooner rather than later”.

Anthony Acevedo, who has owned Kicked Up Fitness in Annapolis for eight years, dreadfully sawthis news coming.

Though the rest of his gym is still available for people to work out, Acevedo knows that limited revenue will not be enough to compensate for how the restrictions will affect his business.

“It’s going to annihilate it,” he said. “I wish theywould’ve actually just shut it down.

“Probably 80% of our revenue is based off classes. We’re a small mom-and-pop gym [so] that is our bread and butter.

Acevedo is concerned the same kind of funding that will help bars and restaurants will not flow toward gyms. He said his

business barely got by during the shutdown in the spring.

“It’s going to be really rough,” Acevedo said. “I’m going to have to have a conversation with my landlord on pushing rent back in hopes that he do so. ... If it goes on farther, in January, then I have no idea because January is our prime time. That’s when we essentially make all our money.”

Anne Arundel County reported 341 new coronavirus cases Thursday, the highest single-day total since the start of the pandemic. The county case rate ticked up to around 48 positive cases for every 100,000 residents, the sixth day in a row the county has set a case rate record, according to county health department data.

Anne Arundel has now confirmed 19,255 cases since the pandemic began in March. Another two people died of the virus as of Thursday; a total of 297 residents have nowdied fromCOVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

“At the end of the pandemic we’re going to look back on this time and ask ourselves whether there was more we could have done to save lives,” Pittman said. “I don’t want to be in a position of wishingwe had done more.”