UPDATE (June 6, 2020): The City of Atlanta is no longer enforcing a curfew. Read more here.
Atlanta’s restaurants, and “essential” businesses in general, are exempt from the City’s nightly curfew that is now in effect through sunrise on Monday, June 8, the Georgia Restaurant Association (GRA) Friday clarified in a statement.
“The curfew does not apply to essential businesses, which includes restaurants,” the GRA announced.
“The curfew is intended to keep the city’s sidewalks and streets clear. However, it does not prohibit persons from traveling in the city via motor vehicle. As such, restaurants should ensure that all patrons are entering their establishment via the restaurant’s designated parking area, as opposed to parking along a street and walking to the restaurant. We recommend encouraging patrons who will be out past curfew to keep a copy of their receipt as an abundance of caution, should they be stopped for any reason.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Thursday issued the Executive Order for the weekend-long curfew and on Friday, via the City’s official Twitter account, said “businesses” did not have to close at 8 p.m., echoing the GRA’s statement.
The curfews, which started Sunday, May 31, were enacted in response to rioting and looting amid peaceful protests spurred by the in-police-custody-death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Monday, May 25.
13 Responses
You go, Hugh! Well said!
Restaurants will not be bullied by Kemp or Trump into reopening. We still have to increase testing and tracing and have cases lower for 14 straight days to consider. So any restaurant opening puts their employees and customers at risk of catching a highly contagious virus. Perhaps they could open with social distancing in place to limited crowds. But it’s up to them to figure out it and consult with the CDC and health experts, of which Trump and Kemp are not
So happy to see these establishments doing the right thing. I’m curious what national chain restaurants will do whether fast food or sit down. I imagine Waffle House will open, but their restaurants are so small, they’d only be able to sit 3 or 4 tables at a time. Whether local or chain, I plan to spend my money on those places that care for its employees. And ones opening Monday clearly prove they don’t care for its employees. When Lindsey Graham questions what Kemp is doing, you know the world is a messed up place!!
Thank you restaurants for being smarter than our 3rd grade leader.
Some great feedback from some very well respected and professional restaurant owners…all except Hugh. Thank you for showing your true colors and I will think twice before dining in one of your restaurants again.
Not my comment but sharing the thought that Kemp might be doing this to excise people off the unemployment list – you can’t apply if you voluntarily chose not to work. Hopefully someone looks into this and prevents it.
https://www.facebook.com/500062484/posts/10158134349907485/?d=n
Spot on Tony…this is absolutely the facts of the matter. Kemp is getting these people off the unemployment rolls because he’s afraid it will bankrupt the state. They’re expendable from a health perspective and he gets to claim that they had a choice to go back to work and therefore, they don’t qualify for the benefits. Just dirty political tricks at its finest.
You hit the nail on the head.
good…Hugh nor I want or need your MAGA kind anywhere near his fine establishments. Stay in John’s Creek!
My understanding is the whole point of lockdown was not to keep people from catching the virus but to keep the medical system from being overwhelmed by the inevitable transmission of the virus those likely to be hospitalized. We have more information now on who is more at risk for being hospitalized which should inform which groups of people should be more diligent about staying locked down.
I assume this was the path we chose because the other lockdown option proposed by the Imperial College (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf) – known as suppression – required lockdowns to last 12-18 months until a vaccine was produced in large quantities. I’m pretty sure that’s not the option we chose because it is basically unworkable.
Given those assumptions, there seem to be two relevant questions here:
1. Do we have the capacity for handling additional cases that could be generated by opening things up a little bit? In the Atlanta area, I would imagine the 100/200 beds put in place at GWCC would significantly factor into that equation. Not sure about the rest of the state.
2. Is opening a restaurant even worth it? The combination of reduced restaurant capacity due to significant enhanced regulations for operation (many of which eliminate cost-optimizing measures like reusable menus, buffets, and customer self-service) and the $600 ($15 an hour for a 40-hour week) unemployment buff creates serious headwinds for restaurant owners as their costs of operating go up, their capacity to generate revenue goes down, and many (most?) of their employees are making decent steady money staying home so they might have a problem even getting people off the sidelines.
Given #2, it’s hard for me to imagine there being any appreciable impact on the unemployment rolls given that restaurants are probably the biggest sector included in this “reopening” and, without exceptional price hikes, very few could make much money by opening their dining rooms – though I suppose every dollar counts.
I think the narrative that Brian Kemp is being reckless is not really true. If we aren’t waiting on a vaccine and can handle a resulting surge in hospitalizations, a limited reopening of some places makes sense. It has to happen a little early in order to give owners the latitude to make the choice when they individually feel safe. Whatever you call it, there is no mandate so it isn’t “bullying.” I think the reality is most restaurants will not open because following the regulations proposed by Kemp and being able to overcome the inertia created by the enhanced unemployment benefit will create barriers that are very hard to overcome by most.
You made some good points.
I am pretty connected to the restaurant industry, and to open dining rooms under the new guidelines is not going to be profitable for many– employees as well as employers.
The extra federal $600 was just thrown out there with no oversight or consideration, which I think was a big mistake. PPP was a total failure as well.
I actually don’t blame the service industry to be hesitant to go back to work…
Hey Caleb.
Now might not be the time, but it would be great if you made the comments section more user-friendly.
Signing in every time is a bit tedious– maybe we could just register one time.
Would also be nice to have a thumbs-up/down option…
Thanks for the feedback! I sent a note to our developer to see what we can do. Stay tuned. ~ CJS