Restaurants in NJ would probably be better served with vax mandates
Here’s a quick note to all area restaurateurs: You’d be better off with a vaccine mandate.
Now to be perfectly clear, I don’t like the idea of the government stepping in with vaccine mandates. It’s not the government’s business. As much as the rational part of me wants the government to step in, the fact is I don’t trust the government and to give them such sweeping power over whether I take an injection or not feels … icky.
But having said that, boy oh boy would we be in a better position if the government did step in. Maybe not necessarily here in Mercer County, where 80% of residents 18 and older are vaccinated, but certainly in other, lesser vaccinated parts of the country.
But when I weigh it all out, I still come down on the side of nope, better to not have the government stepping in. (One more but coming …)
But I was in New York over the weekend, and let me tell you something: The restaurants were packed. Went to two of them, and they were both jammed. And you know why? Because of the New York City vaccine mandate for restaurants.
You know where restaurants aren’t packed? Here in New Jersey, where there is no mandate.
Here’s my theory, and I’m pretty confident I’m correct: For people who are vaccinated — and again, in Mercer County, that’s 80% of the 18 and over population — knowing everyone else around you is vaccinated buys you peace of mind. It buys you peace of mind even through this Omicron wave, because yes, while it’s possible bordering on likely you might catch the corona even if you’re vaxxed, at least you know those around you dining are not dismissing the virus out of hand. I mean, if you’ve gone ahead and taken the vaccine, you’re probably masking when you should mask and doing all the “right” things.
I’m triple-vaxxed and had corona a few weeks back. It was the most mild illness of my lifetime. Take coronavirus out of the equation, and I would’ve just thought I had a slight cold. So right now, at this moment, I am not, in any way, scared of the virus. This, of course, is subject to change if the next variant causes people to drop dead on contact, but one day at a time.
So even though I’m not worried about COVID right now, I’m not exactly keen to be spending time indoors with people who are unvaxxed and think this is all nonsense. I mean, at this point, I can’t even empathize with that point of view, but whatever. Point is, I’m just not quite there yet, mentally. Is this on me? Yeah, sure, why not. I’ll own it.
Which brings me back to the restaurant industry. Listen: When I was in New York, I felt like things were, for the first time, back to normal. Sure, showing your vax card and ID are not normal, but being in a restaurant and not thinking, not for one second, about whether the people at the next table are COVID deniers? That sure felt normal.
And I’m going to guess a good chunk of those 80% of Mercer County residents who are fully vaxxed would love to be able to go out to eat, or see a concert, or do pretty much anything in New Jersey without worrying about the people next to them.
A government mandate? Doesn’t thrill me. But I’ll tell you this much — businesses should band together on this and do it themselves. Doesn’t even have to be an every day thing. Heck, I bet if restaurants immediately started advertising Saturday nights as mandatory vax nights, they’d be packed again.