State guides churches, large venues on reopening
The state on Monday released guidelines for places of worship to resume in-person services and directives for large indoor and outdoor venues to reopen.
Large outdoor venues can reopen with a
50-person maximum, effective immediately, and indoor venues can reopen with a 50-person maximum May 18, Gov. Asa Hutchison said Monday, as part of Phase 1 of Reopening Arkansas.
“Phase 2 will come when there have been
14 days without a resurgence of new cases,” Hutchinson said during his daily COVID-19 update news conference in Little Rock.
Diane LaFollette, Mid-America Science Museum executive director, said she was “very pleased” with the governor’s announcement, and plans to reopen the museum May 18, with both the state’s guidelines and their own.
“We’re going to be implementing his directive, but we’re also going to be doing a few oth
er things like putting up some barriers at our registers, we’re going to require our staff to wear masks, which is what he’s required, but we’re also going to require our snack bar employees and people at the admissions desk to wear gloves,” LaFollette said. “We’re going to lose some exhibits that have small particles where the virus might hide.”
Maxwell Blade, of Maxwell Blade’s Theatre of Magic and Comedy, 817 Central Ave., said the number of people allowed in indoor venues such as large theaters should have correlated with the number of seats the venue holds.
“I think the number should have been larger than 50, especially in a 300-500 seat theater, it could have been increased and still had plenty of space,” Blade said. “We want people to be safe; we don’t want to cause any problems. … We are weighing out our options to see what we might be able to do to make this work until all these restrictions are lifted, because right now I cannot do shows to 50 people and pay 14 employees.”
Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said by excluding groups larger than 50 for large indoor venues, convention centers across the state were excluded from Phase 1 in the reopenings.
“It’s not about what we want, it’s about what the customers want and they need more than 50 attendees at their meetings,” Arrison said, noting the convention center is “just as safe, if not safer,” than churches, so he wished they would have had the same restrictions and guidelines to reopen.
Pastor John McCallum of First Baptist Church, 2350 Central Ave., said his church, which has over 1,000 regular attendees, is considering remaining online until June, and even when it does reopen its doors he expects the vulnerable population to stay home, as they did at the start of the pandemic when the church was still meeting in mid-March.
“I was surprised it was as open as it was; I thought that he might have said some things like he did with restaurants, like 33% capacity,” McCallum said. “… I think part of it is because most churches in Arkansas are not very big, so if he was to open it up to like 50, or even 100; a lot of churches aren’t much bigger than that.”
“And also,” he continued, “I think (Hutchinson) understands what’s happening in other segments of society that’s opening up: The most vulnerable people are staying home.”
McCallum said the church conducted a survey with its congregation last week and
68% of participants said they were going to wait a few weeks to attend service, regardless of what the church does or Hutchinson said.
“I think (Hutchinson) recognizes a lot of people are just kind of policing themselves,” he said. The vulnerable population realizes “this virus is no joke and they want to be sure they don’t get sick, so we’re going to encourage that in our reopening plan; encourage they remain as online participants at least through May and perhaps into June.”
Pastor Terry Williams, of Community of Christ, 1590 Airport Road, said his church is governed by the World Church, which currently will not allow it to open until June, regardless of what Hutchinson said. However, he noted if the church was to open right away under Hutchinson’s guidelines, he thought the guidelines were “responsible.”
“The guidelines that he gave, given the situation we’re in, if we were going to be able to meet, I think they’re really, really responsible. I think what he’s asking is not difficult … I appreciate his leadership throughout this entire
COVID-19 outbreak,” Williams said.
While working under the name Community of Christ, Williams said as the church strives to promote community, being able to meet in-person makes all the difference within their community.
“COVID-19 is bigger than just us as individuals; we do want to have church,” he said. “Our first church service that was canceled was March 15, so we have found a lot of different ways to engage. I noticed one of the very first things Gov. Hutchinson said was he encouraged his people to continue to use online platforms, which we certainly have been doing, and while that is good and allows our people the ability to hear each other some, it’s just not like being together.”
Large outdoor venues, Hutchinson said, applies to arenas, sports venues, race tracks, stadiums, amusement centers and fairgrounds. Large indoor venues applies to auditoriums, lecture halls, movie theaters, museums, arenas, sports venues, race tracks, funeral homes and bowling alleys.
It was noted that casinos are not included in large indoor venues.
During the conference, Hutchinson also said the Arkansas Ready for Business grant program has increased from $15 million to $55 million, as a result of the need among businesses was higher than anticipated.