Bar and restaurant owners in Texas and Florida were fuming on Friday after state officials abruptly slapped new restrictions on their businesses due to a spike in new COVID-19 cases.
Owners warned the sudden reversals, just weeks after accelerated reopenings, will drive some out of business."You can't turn a bar into an UberEats," said Jeff Kaplan, co-owner of Houston's Axelrad Beer Garden. He said businesses could not stay afloat relying on the new rules that provide to-go sales but not alcohol consumption on the premises.
Houston restaurant owner Peter Mitchell said his revenue has been running a third of normal and fell further as virus cases soared in the region."I wish we had tougher restrictions for another month when we did the 25per cent occupancy ," said Mitchell. He said his business never has exceeded 25per cent occupancy, but noted that no regulators have ever checked.
“The level of ambiguity that we’ve run into every step of the way has been really challenging,” said Will Thompson, owner of Miami’s Jaguar Sun."It comes back to the lack of clarity from officials.”
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