24-7 dining returns to Wichita area as county drops COVID curfew on some restaurants
Dining around the clock will return to the Wichita area next week.
The Sedgwick County Commission voted Wednesday to rescind an anti-COVID order that has required restaurants to close at 11 p.m.
That means restaurants can have their dining rooms open at all hours of the day, with the exception of eateries that also serve alcohol.
The charge to reopen late-night dining was led by Commissioner Jim Howell, who argued that International House of Pancakes and similar 24-7 eateries are vital to serving workers who have non-standard schedules.
“There are people in our area who use restaurants like that in the middle of the night,” he said. “Law enforcement officers, for example, might want to get a meal. Military members might want to get a meal. Manufacturing workers might want to get a meal.
“These places don’t serve alcohol, they are simply open to provide meals to people in the community. It’s their business model.”
Saying the county is “winning the battle on COVID,” Howell had hoped to remove the curfew for bars and alcohol-serving restaurants as well and “return to normal,” the state-mandated closing time of 2 a.m.
But he acknowledged that he didn’t have the three commission votes he’d need to pass that.
The county health officer, Dr. Garold Minns, originally instituted a curfew on bars and nightclubs months ago, seeking to cut down on middle-of-the-night socializing and bar-hopping that put customers and employees at high risk of spreading or catching the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
He later added restaurants to the curfew, because with the regular bars and clubs shut down, the night life simply moved to places that sold alcohol and food and were licensed as restaurants.
In recent weeks, Minns has said he is not as concerned about the non-alcohol-serving establishments, because people tend to arrive, eat and leave, instead of staying for hours at a time to socialize like they do in a bar or nightclub.
The new rules take effect as of 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
The unanimous vote to ease the restrictions on late-night dining came after commissioners rejected efforts to slow down a planned relaxation of attendance limits on mass gatherings and sports events.
Two commissioners, Sarah Lopez and Lacey Cruse, expressed misgivings about rule changes proposed by Minns Tuesday that would increase the allowable size of gatherings to 100 - up from the current 25-person limit — and allow four spectators per participant at youth and recreational sports, up from the current two.
Lopez argued that the changes were taking place too fast and that if COVID rates start rising again, it would be difficult to roll back to the stricter limits.
She proposed that the limit on mass gatherings be set at 50 for the time being and allowed to ramp up if the COVID rate remains stable.
Also, she said her daughter participates in youth sports and that some venues are already dangerously overcrowded even at two spectators per participant.
She said a large part of the problem comes when one game is near ending and the next set to begin, which results in two crowds being at the same place at the same time.
She made a motion on that to keep the two-person limit.
Both Lopez motions were voted down by the same 3-2 margin, with Cruse in support and commissioners Howell, David Dennis and Pete Meitzner opposed.
This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 2:02 PM.
