Hidalgo, Turner order bars to shutter
‘FLATTEN THE CURVE’: Restaurants to serve takeout, delivery only
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Mayor Sylvester Turner on Monday ordered all bars and clubs countywide to close for 15 days, the most drastic step local officials have taken to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
The order, which takes effect at 8 a.m. Tuesday, also limits restaurants to takeout and delivery orders. City and county leaders acknowledged the edict could force restaurateurs out of business and cost waitstaff, cooks and bartenders their jobs, but said that dreadful outcome is better than an outbreak in which local hospitals are overrun.
While Turner insisted the closures are not akin to a lockdown, Hidalgo urged residents to avoid any unnecessary contact with other people, effectively signaling a temporary end to public life for the county’s 4.7 million residents. She said the Houston area is at a pivotal moment in determining the path of the virus.
“The decisions we make, and you make, to go out in groups or to stay home will very much determine whether people live or die,”
Hidalgo said. “Whether we flatten the curve sufficiently to allow our health care workers to address the influx of cases, or whether our health care system and community at large are overwhelmed.”
The Harris County Fire Marshal’s Office will enforce the temporary rules, Hidalgo said. Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen said her inspectors will focus on ensuring bar and restaurants comply and promised to issue citations for repeat offenders.
At a news conference where officials tried to stand apart to avoid potentially spreading the virus, city and county leaders said they wanted to avoid the fate of some European cities that belatedly limited public interactions as cases of the new coronavirus spiked.
There were 29 such cases in the Houston area on Monday, though health officials concede limited testing capabilities mean the true figure is likely much higher. Though the region has yet to confirm a single fatality, Dr. David Persse of the Houston Health Department noted Italy reported 349 deaths related to COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, on Sunday alone.
“We are doing these very drastic measures in order to prevent that from occurring in our community,” Persse said.
Turner said new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led him to change his stance on closing bars. The CDC on Sunday recommended gatherings be limited to 50 people for eight weeks. President Donald Trump on Monday said groups should be no larger than 10, and the CDC revised its guidelines accordingly.
News of the mandate was met with dismay by some bar owners. They said cancellation of many sporting events, including the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournaments, already had dealt a severe blow to business. The announced closure could be fatal.
A bartender at the Dogwood on Bagby Street said he “lost it” when the closure was announced.
“I didn’t think it was going to be a full closedown,” he said, asking not to be identified.
He said he would take advantage of the hiring boom at H-E-B, which announced it would be seeking temporary workers, and apply to support himself and his fiancée, who is four months pregnant.
The bar closures and restaurant restrictions are “unquestionably going to cause a financial and health calamity for working people,” said Hany Khalil, executive director of the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation.
He said he agrees with the move because it is based on recommendations from health experts but called on all levels of government to take “swift action” to help affected workers.
“In the bar and restaurant sector, we’re talking about low-wage workers, often uninsured, with little savings to weather the health and economic storm,” Khalil said. “And we need to make sure that they are provided for. They’re not responsible for the situation.”
After Dallas County announced similar restrictions Monday, the Texas Restaurant Association projected that up to 500,000 of the roughly 1.4 million employees in the Texas restaurant industry would lose their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Anna Tauzin, the group’s chief revenue officer and spokeswoman.
There are some 300,000 restaurant employees in Harris County, though Tauzin said it was not clear how many could lose their job as a result of the restrictions. The job loss projections do not account for related industries, such as food suppliers and truckers, which Tauzin said also would be hit hard by the loss in restaurant demand.
Some restaurants already have reported upward of a 90 percent loss in business, Tauzin said, including those that are not equipped to handle curbside and delivery orders. She said TRA is asking elected officials to come up with emergency grants, unemployment benefits, tax credits and low-interest loans to help workers who lose their jobs.
“Unfortunately, the statistics do say that a lot of people that work in the restaurant industry don’t have a lot of savings, so they are living paycheck to paycheck,” Tauzin said. “I don’t know any other way to put it — it’s terrifying.”
Hidalgo and Turner said they hoped bills currently being debated by Congress can help restaurant owners and their employees, through temporary unemployment benefits or small-business loans. They made no commitment to use local funds to bail out the industry, though they urged residents to keep patronizing their favorite places.
“We encourage people — takeout, pickup, delivery,” Turner said.
Monday’s decision came after the three largest cities in the United States — New York, Los Angeles and Chicago — had ordered bars, restaurants and other gathering places closed to slow the spread of coronavirus as confirmed cases in the country approached 4,000.
Many in the local community questioned the city’s decision to allow the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to operate for 14 days before shuttering the event March 11 after discovering a coronavirus case originated there. Health officials have linked at least two more cases to the rodeo.
Even as governors in other states, including fellow Republican executives in Ohio and Massachusetts, moved to shutter bars and prohibit dining-in at restaurants, and as the White House recommended Americans refrain from eating and drinking out during the pandemic, Gov. Greg Abbott has held steady to his view that those are decisions best made by local politicians. Abbott is the chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
“The state of Texas is so diverse that the best way for us to approach it is to empower local officials in working with local health care authorities,” Abbott said, adding that he was not ruling out the possibility. “What we do is we remain flexible based upon the conditions on the ground.”