Bars must close, but no curfew for restaurants under county’s amended COVID-19 order
Sedgwick County commissioners decided Wednesday to uphold an order by their health officer to shut down bars and nightclubs, but rejected a curfew on restaurants that serve alcohol.
They also shortened the closures from the seven weeks recommended by Dr. Garold Minns to four weeks.
Minns signed the order to close bars early Wednesday morning, a day after telling commissioners that the social atmosphere fostered by drinking establishments is a ripe environment for spreading coronavirus COVID-19 among younger residents.
On Tuesday, he told commissioners that strong action was needed because area hospitals are at their high-water mark for COVID patients and the new cases are skewing younger.
Now, eight out of 10 coronavirus patients in Sedgwick County are under 60 and 55% are under 40, Minns said.
The commission overturned Minns’ recommended limits on restaurants that serve alcohol.
On Tuesday, Minns said he planned to order that such establishments be required to close at 10 p.m., which he changed to midnight in the final order.
The idea behind that was to keep the late-night party scene from moving to alcohol-serving restaurants during the time period that the bars are closed. The original order would not have affected restaurants that serve food only.
By a 4-1 vote with Commissioner Lacey Cruse dissenting, all restaurants were removed from Minns’ order.
The commission also removed municipal swimming pools from the order.
Those had been inadvertently included because of the way the order was drafted and Minns said he would not have a problem with pools being open, said Justin Waggoner, the assistant county counselor who worked with Minns on the draft order.
On a motion by Cruse, the period of the bar closure was reduced.
Minns wanted to keep the bars closed until Sept. 9, but Cruse’s motion shortens that to Aug. 21.
The commission also clarified that a 15-person limit on mass gatherings in Minns’ order isn’t a firm limit.
Weddings and other activities can include as many participants as can fit in a venue up to 2,000 people, as long as each group of 15 is separated from the next group of 15 by six feet of open space.
Religious institutions are completely exempt, along with polling places, child care facilities, schools and courts.
The other key provisions of the order include:
▪ Fairs, parades and festivals must be canceled.
▪ Activities seating more than 2,000 people in a venue are banned.
▪ Employees and customers over 11 years of age are required to wear a face covering in most businesses and other public spaces when six feet of separation between patrons cannot be maintained. Wichita has its own mask ordinance and within that city’s limits, children over 5 are required to be masked.
The vote on the final order, as amended by the commission, was 4-1 with Commissioner Michael O’Donnell dissenting.
In a related matter, the commission delayed a move by O’Donnell to set aside $5 million from the county’s share of federal COVID-19 response funds to help offset the losses that bar owners and employees will suffer during the shutdown.
O’Donnell said enhanced unemployment benefits of $600 a week from the federal government to COVID-displaced workers ends in nine days and the county needs to step in with a similar program if it’s going to order businesses to close their doors.
“We’re telling all these workers . . . at bars and nightclubs that ‘You’re out of work Friday morning at 12:01,’” O’Donnell said. “Their utility bills, their rent, their groceries, those do not stop.
“We have money. We have millions of dollars, many millions of dollars to help support our economy . . . My heart breaks for these people. We sit up here, we receive our salaries . . . but we’re putting other people out of work.”
He said that there are many bars and nightclubs that have followed county guidelines for coronavirus prevention, “but they’re getting punished. Punished by Dr. Minns’ order.”
The consensus of the commission seemed to lean toward doing something along the lines of what O’Donnell proposed, but Cruse and Commissioner David Dennis expressed concern that the issue was brought up as an off-agenda item that hadn’t been researched by county financial staff.
While some bars are complying with masks and social distancing rules, others have been on TV boasting about how they won’t enforce the requirements, Dennis said.
“As I watched the news recently, I saw one bar owner standing in front of his bar saying ‘I’m not going to enforce any mask order,’” Dennis said. “So what are we doing today? We’re going to reward that bar owner now by paying them for not following the rules, that caused us to get into this situation.”
He said he supports helping businesses that follow the rules, but doesn’t want to reward “bad actors.”
Lindsay Poe Rousseau, the county’s chief financial officer, said the county can do what O’Donnell wants, but there’s a risk.
The spending could be deemed ineligible for reimbursement from the $99 million the county’s been granted by the federal CARES Act for COVID-19 response.
In that case, the county would be on the hook to refund the $5 million to the federal government, she said.
The commission decided to set the proposal aside for a week to give staff time to analyze the options for providing relief for bar owners and employees.
County Manager Tom Stolz said the staff will present a menu of options and costs for helping bars at next week’s board meeting.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 1:39 PM.
