Wichita mayor wants city to bolster COVID response after county ‘gutted’ health order

Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple said he’s exploring ways to strengthen the city’s coronavirus response after the Sedgwick County Commission “gutted” an order by its public health officer aimed at closing bars and nightclubs.

The County Commission’s amendments to the order do close some nightclubs and bikini bars, but the vast majority of Wichita’s most popular bars are exempt from the order and allowed to stay open.

Whipple said he wants the city to tighten restrictions on those businesses before the coronavirus outbreak gets completely out of control.

“My job right now is to figure out how to avoid a complete shutdown,” Whipple said Thursday at his weekly news briefing.

He said he wants to place a curfew on restaurants and bars known for turning into nightclubs after dark. He also wants to loosen some city codes to allow more outdoor dining in parking lots, city streets and sidewalks.

“We all know it’s safer to eat outside, so is there a way that we can, at this point, provide more opportunities for folks to go out, safely eat and stimulate (the restaurant) sector, not close it down,” he said.

The two proposed measures would align the city’s COVID-19 response with recommendations from the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

“This is kind of a Hail Mary,” Whipple said. “The White House says these should all be shut down by now. ... If we don’t take action now, we’ll probably get to a bigger shutdown.”

A recent report by the task force pinpointed Sedgwick County as a “red zone” for the virus and called for more restrictive public health mandates, including closing bars, nightclubs and gyms; limiting gatherings to 10 people; increasing outdoor dining opportunities; and cutting indoor occupancy rates in restaurants to 25%.

In response, Dr. Garold Minns, county health officer and dean of the University of Kansas Medical School in Wichita, signed an order earlier this week that would have closed bars and nightclubs and set a curfew at most of the city’s most popular nightlife destinations from Friday to Sept. 9.

On Wednesday, the Sedgwick County Commission loosened the restrictions in Minns’ order, dropping the curfew and allowing most popular bars in Wichita to remain open. It also set the order to expire Aug. 21.

Commission Chairman Pete Meitzner on Wednesday called the changes “incredibly minor,” but Whipple later that night said in a Facebook post that the changes “gutted” the Minns’ order, “making it almost useless.”

On Thursday, Whipple softened his criticism, saying “the order itself is a good step forward.”

He said the extra measures are necessary because the Wichita Police Department has told him that many Old Town bars exempted by the commission are the same ones that have been ignoring a city ordinance that requires mask wearing in public places, which could put their liquor license in jeopardy.

“At a certain time, that’s when we’re seeing bars get turned more into nightclubs,” Whipple said. “Towards the end of the night, they really can’t enforce mask ordinances anymore. People are drinking, they’re dancing, they’re having a good time. At that point, it’s very tough to get the orders enforced.”

The county’s amended order narrowly defines bars and nightclubs as any “premises which are open to the general public where alcoholic liquor by the individual drink is sold and which derive less than 30 percent of gross revenue from sales of food and non-alcoholic beverages for consumption on such premises in a 2-month period.”

The order does close some clubs in Old Town, including Industry, Enigma, Revolution Lounge, XY and Fever. But the Pumphouse, 6 Degrees, Heroes, Brickyard, Emerson Biggins, Wave and River City Brewery are all free to open their doors this weekend and remain open until 2 a.m. if they so choose.

Outside of Old Town, most of the city’s other late-night haunts are also exempted by the county.

That order closes bikini bars such as Baby Dolls and Glamour Girls, but allows the recently-opened, large dance hall Midnight Rodeo to stay open, which Whipple said goes against the intent of Minns’ order.

Whether the city adopts additional restrictions will likely be a decision of the City Council, Whipple said.

If the City Council does take action, it would be the second time this month the council has stepped in to tighten restrictions that were loosened by the County Commission.

On July 3, after the commission dropped the governor’s mask mandate, Whipple called an emergency meeting to pass a city ordinance mandating masks in most public places.

It’s unclear when the council would make a decision. Its Tuesday meeting is a consent and workshop meeting, where the council traditionally doesn’t take up new business items. The next regular meeting is Aug. 4.

“I’m still running the traps with the council to see what the feedback is,” Whipple said.

This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 5:05 PM.