South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Close-time violations fuel eatery crackdown
Some Palm Beach County restaurants open past 11 p.m.
Palm Beach County is coming down with a stricter set of nighttime restrictions for restaurants after some weren’t following the rules and staying open late into the night, County Mayor Dave Kerner said Friday.
Over one week ago, restaurants were required to close at 11 p.m. out of concerns that late-night gatherings were helping spread the coronavirus. But some eateries that sell alcohol kept operating against the county’s emergency order.
Certain businesses were “interpreting the order to mean that you could have customers in there, you just couldn’t serve them,” Kerner said. “So what they were doing was selling bottles and bottles and bottles of liquor to people and just letting them hang out until all hours of the night.”
When the county’s COVID-19 Education Compliance Team found out about that problem, the county decided to refine its emergency order. The county’s original order was intended to give customers room to finish eating before having to leave at 11. But the order “had some ambiguity in the sense that we didn’t want to have to kick people out of the restaurant right at 11,” Kerner said Friday.
A new order that was signed Thursday replaces the order from July 14 — and it’s stricter, Kerner said.
It now specifies that restau
rants cannot serve food or alcohol and have to be empty — aside from closing and cleaning staff — at 11 p.m. There cannot be indoor or outdoor seating from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. This is a “much more clear but much more direct” order, Kerner said.
Kerner said he did not know the exact number of businesses the COVID-19 Education Compliance Team found violating the order but said it was enough that it was “an obvious problem.”
The order says individuals can be fined $25 for the first violation, $50 for a second and $100 for any additional violations. Businesses can be fined $250 for the first violation, $350 for a second and $500 for each additional violation of the order.
Officials from Palm Beach to Miami-Dade have blamed rising coronavirus cases on crowds gathering at bars that should not be open and restaurants acting as bars into the late-night hours. Kerner, citing Broward and Miami-Dade’s curfews, said Palm Beach is not at the point of enacting a curfew beyond the one pertaining to restaurants.
County Administrator Verdenia Baker echoed a consistent message from local government authorities, that people have to avoid large gatherings and parties.
Baker warned that Sheriff Ric Bradshaw will be breaking up any parties or large gatherings.
“You must adhere to this. We will not tolerate street parties. We will not tolerate it. The sheriff will be enforcing all of the rules,” Baker said.