Anne Arundel judge suspends Pittman’s order
Injunction allows 25% capacity indoor dining and 50% outdoor until Dec. 28
Restaurant owners in Anne Arundel County woke up Wednesday morning prepared to lay off staff and close their doors for at least four weeks.
By mid-morning, County Executive Steuart Pittman announced he was rolling back some of the restrictions set to take effect at 5 p.m. and would allow outdoor dining, as long as any tent surrounding patrons remained at least half-open to the air
few hours later, a county judge approved an injunction suspending Pittman’s order, effectively allowing restaurants to continue to serve patrons inside and outside until Dec. 28. County officials said they don’t plan to appeal and are preparing for the upcoming hearing.
Restaurants can keep their doors open for nearly two weeks after Circuit Court Judge William Mul ford approved a temporary restraining order and in junction Wednesday that bars Pittman’s executive order shuttering dining, set to begin at 5 p.m. Wednesday. Ed Hartman, an attorney representing four restaurant owners in the county, filed the injunction Tuesday. Annapolis will follow the county, allowing city restaurants to remain open aswell.
James King, whose Titan Restaurant Group owns several county restaurants including the recently opened Smashing Grapes and Blackwall Hitch in Annapolis, along with the owners of Heroes Pub in Annapolis; La Posta Pizza in Severna Park; and Joe Lefavor, owner of Adam’s Taphouse and Grille Severna Park, joined together to challenge Pittman’s order in court.
Mulford found the restaurant owners might prove Pittman’s order caused harm to foodservice establishments and targeted those entities over similar businesses also linked as a source of transmission.
“The County Executive appears to have relied on selective interpretation of the data relating to COVID-19 matters that ignores or minimizes other sources of COVID-19 contact, and has not clearly explained the overall hospital capacity in Anne Arundel County as it relates to COVID exposure,” Mulford wrote in the motion.
The injunction allows restaurants to revert to 25% capacity inside and 50% capacity outside, as laid out in Pittman’s previous executive order, until the next hearing on Dec. 28, Hartman said. That hearing will determine if Pittman has the authority to issue an order restaurants owners say will put them out of business. The temporary restraining order and injunction are the first step in a legal challenge.
Outside of restaurant restrictions, Pittman’s most recent order will continue to take effect at 5 p.m. “All credit goes to Judge Mulford,” Hartman said. “It’s a tough step to take a contentious situation like that and suspend an order of the county executive.”
Under the rest of the order, retail stores, fitness centers, casinos, nail and hair salons will scale back to 25% capacity. Casinos can not serve food or alcohol except for curbside takeout. All organized sports and practices are suspended. Indoor theaters, performance venues, bowling alleys and pool halls will close.
Changes to the executive order also impact bingo halls, which will allow patrons to play slot machines but not to participate in active bingo games. Fitness
centers can’t allow team sports but can conduct group classes if those classes are taught in a space with 150 square feet per participant, and the total number of participants doesn’t exceed 25% occupancy. Roller rinks and indoor ice rinks can allow 10 people on the ice or in the rink and no more than 10 additional non-employees in the facility at any one time.
Pittman said he was disappointed in the ruling. He thought the county made a good case on the risks and the projected hospitalization numbers. The county doesn’t plan to file an appeal at this time. Enforcement of the allowed restrictions will continue.
“I know it is going to lead to more people getting the virus and more people needing hospitalization,” Pittman told The Capital Wednesday afternoon. “It is going to add to the spread and our hospitalization numbers.”
Like county executives across the state, Pittman wrestles with twin pressures to stave off a mounting emergency in the county’s hospitals, which have inched closer in recent weeks to reaching capacity, and to support the county’s workers whose livelihoods have been decimated by the coronavirus pandemic.
Restaurants have been particularly hard hit because of the dangers of contracting COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, associated with spending time indoors, having lengthy contact with a group of people and not wearing masks while eating and drinking.
Pittman and county health officer Nilesh Kalyanaraman, in public discussions with stakeholders and interviews with the media, have defended their initial decision to bar both indoor and outdoor because while eating, patrons can’t wear their masks, and typically, tables don’t provide six feet of distance between the customers.
“Outdoors is better than indoors, but according to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and our health officer and Johns Hopkins, the people that have been advising us, it’s not safe,” Pittman said on a call with media Tuesday morning.
Kalyanaraman has said the outdoor tents and structures some restaurants erected to block out the winter cold effectively function as indoor spaces with worse ventilation and do little to mitigate the infection risks of indoor dining. The health officer has maintained his recommendation of closing outdoor and indoor dining.
But restaurants used previous relief grants from the county government to invest in outdoor infrastructures like tents and heaters to make dining in the winter months more attractive to potential customers. Such businesses questioned why Pittman initially decided to shut down the option when other jurisdictions, such as Prince George’s County, did not.
The order by Mulford has no immediate impact on other Maryland jurisdictions under a dining ban. But restaurant owners across the state may hold up the Anne Arundel order as they ask judges to step in and block dining bans in their own communities.
Before the judge’s decison, restaurant owners were scrambling to meet Pittman’s amended order.
“Right now, the tent’s already down,” said Kristos Miliotis, owner of Perry’s Restaurant in Odenton. “I was actually just getting ready to call (the) rental company to see if I can get a bigger tent. It’s a whole set of new problems, but hopefully, they’re good.”
Miliotis and other restaurateurs said they are unsure patrons will want to sit outside during the winter, even with tents and heaters, and whether making outdoor dining available will be worth the investment. Others said it’s too late to redirect course.
“Shutting down a restaurant is something you can’t do with a click of a finger,” said Frederik De Pue, chef and owner of Flamant in West Annapolis. “Saturday night, we spent two hours dismantling everything. We had to cancel New Year’s Eve reservations for this weekend. We’re not getting them back.”
After Pittman’s initial restrictions announcement, De Pue laid off 12 of his 15 employees, anticipating the lost business over the bustling holiday season. The restaurant invested in an outdoor patio. De Pue said patrons would dine there, leaving generous tips, taking home expensive bottles of wine and ordering the entire tasting menu just to support the business.
“Why was this not thought about a week ago when [Pittman] made the announcement,” he said. “We’re very resilient, but we don’t like to be tossed around.”
In an interview, Pittman acknowledged the criticism and said his initial decision was made with the incorrect assumption that outdoor dining in the cold winter months wouldn’t generate enough business to make a difference for the restaurants. After the Friday announcement, his administration heard differently from restaurateurs.
Pittman has requested the Anne Arundel County Council put $2 million toward a restaurant workers fund to help those who have been laid off due to the pandemic. The county also extended the application deadline for out-of-work restaurant employees to sign up and receive gifts from Toys for Tots. The application portal is open through 5 p.m. Friday.
County residents who are in financial distress can call 410-222-FOOD for assistance.