Health checks begin
Bethlehem officials visit businesses to instruct owners on compliance
Bethlehem Health Bureau, along with the city’s police and fire departments, has begun visiting businesses as part of an education campaign to help restaurants, stores, gyms and other establishments follow coronavirus safety guidelines.
“It’s twofold: to provide education and to make sure businesses are adhering to rules,” said Bethlehem Health Bureau Director Kristen Wenrich.
The visits are not inspections and the team won’t be issuing fines, she said.
Since businesses reopened, the Bethlehem Health Bureau has received 61 complaints about businesses not following guidelines, including people not wearing masks, sick employees, overcrowding, lack of cleaning and coughing.
However, the weekly visits to randomly selected businesses are more of a response to the changing state requirementsthan resident complaints.
Allentown and Bethlehem
health bureaus have been visiting a business after receiving a complaint that it’s not following rules in place to mitigate the virus. But health officials wouldn’t issue any fines, which can be anywhere from $10 to $1,000, unless a business repeatedly failed to fix problems.
Health officials can also refer cases to the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, which could suspend a restaurant’s liquor license. But businesses rarely have been fined.
The Allentown Health Bureau has received complaints about 82 businesses and is in the process of issuing fines for two food establishments, said Director Vicky Kistler. The Allentown Health Bureau is not launching a comparable program but will continue to address complaints.
The Bethlehem Health Bureau has not issued any fines. But under its new initiative, the bureau will randomly select about 15 businesses a week to visit, looking to see if they’re enforcing mask, cleaning and other rules meant to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
The measure is being taken to keep cases in the Lehigh Valley from spiking, as they have in some other areas. As of Friday, there were more than 4,600 cases in Lehigh and Northampton County, including more than 50 new cases that day.
Statewide, the daily total Friday was the highest since May 10, reaching 1,213, and health officials have put much of the blame on young people and the bars and restaurants that have allowed them to gather in large numbers and without heeding social distancing rules.
“Right now, we’re trying to hold back a wave,” Gov. Tom Wolf said during a news conference Friday. “We thought we were doing a great job. We were — we were down to 300 to 400 new cases a day. We’re now up to 900 to 1,000 ... and that is a problem.”
State police are also trying to enforce the mask and social distancing rules, with liquor control enforcement officers visiting more than 15,600 businesses across the state since July 1, according to data Friday on the state police website. Of those, 275 were issued warnings but only one was issued a notice of violation. That notice came from the Allentown office, which covers Lehigh,
Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Montgomery and Schuylkill counties. State police did not give the name or location of the business. In the Allentown region, state police visited 2,051 businesses, issuing warnings to 21. For the businesses that received a violation notice, a judge could decide to issue a fine, which could jeopardize the business’s liquor license.
Local businesses have struggled since the start of the pandemic, with many forced to close as the coronavirus skyrocketed in Pennsylvania and across the country. As quarantine requirements and lock down orders wore on, some businesses pushed back and warned the closures would devastate them and local economies.
But reopening business came with stringent rules that changed, depending on the severity of coronavirus spread in
Pennsylvania, which meant businesses had to adapt quickly in setting up outdoor dining, sneeze guards, socially distant layouts and deeper cleaning practices.
The state has issued safety orders for businesses five times since the shut down in March, said Health Department spokesperson Nate Wardle.
While businesses welcomed the opportunity to reopen, the rules issued by the state haven’t always been clear and meeting them has been challenging.
“It’s hard for business to change and adapt on the fly,” said Derek Wallen, the owner of Roasted, a restaurant in Bethlehem.
Lawrence Wright, who owns The Barber Pill barbershop in Bethlehem, said he likes the idea of getting more information on the requirements.
“Information is key,” he said. “I’m with it.”
Public health and law enforcement officials have said they’ve tried to avoid punitive measures in enforcing the rules because businesses are already struggling to stay open.
Tony Iannelli, CEO and president of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, said businesses have gone through a lot. Restaurants, he noted, lost money with the order to close and then had to spend money on tables, chairs, plastic utensils and other supplies needed to accommodate outdoor dining and social distancing rules, all with fewer customers than before the pandemic.
“I’m hoping the inspections are about cooperation. We certainly don’t mind the help. Policing would be a whole different story,” he said.