Georgia Governor Brian Kemp yesterday signed SB 236 making cocktails to-go permanent from food service establishments, according to a joint statement from the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States and Georgia Restaurant Association.
Georgia becomes the eighth state to make a COVID-era cocktails to-go measure permanent.
“Cocktails to-go has provided a much-needed lifeline for struggling hospitality businesses across the U.S. and prevented the permanent closure of many,” Jay Hibbard, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States senior vice president of state government relations, said in a prepared statement. “Georgia’s hospitality businesses now have the opportunity to utilize cocktails to-go, increasing stability as they begin the long path to economic recovery. We applaud the Georgia Legislature and Governor Kemp for supporting local businesses and for providing increased convenience to consumers.”
More than 30 states began allowing restaurants and/or bars to sell cocktails to-go as a COVID-19 economic relief measure amid the pandemic.
Iowa, Ohio, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Montana, Arkansas, West Virginia, Georgia, and the District of Columbia have all made COVID-era cocktails to-go measures permanent. Dozens of other states are also considering legislation to extend or make permanent cocktails to-go measures.
“We are appreciative of our state legislators’ support of Georgia’s restaurant industry in passing this bill,” Karen Bremer, president, and CEO of the Georgia Restaurant Association, said. “By allowing cocktails to-go, restaurants that are still struggling to keep their doors open now have another opportunity to offer guests a full-service dining experience in their own homes. Our sincerest thanks to Senator Matt Brass and all of SB 236’s sponsors for their hard work.”
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