Reopening Restaurants Essential to Recovery

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CAPE MAY – Food and beverage sales are a major contributor to Cape May County’s $6.6 billion tourism economy. According to county estimates, this sector of the local economy accounts for over $1.5 billion annually in consumer spending.
The question is how to safely free restaurants from the current, COVID-19-imposed restrictions in ways that do not endanger public health.
Cape May City Council May 5 discussed ways to allow restaurants to utilize outside surrounding space and even streets for table arrangements, which would promote appropriate social distancing for diners. Local business owner, Curtis Bashaw, urged the city to modify existing ordinances on outdoor dining, permitting more extensive outside service, including closed streets and sidewalk areas.
The county’s Recovery Initiative Plan was submitted to the governor May 5.  In it, the county task force recommended that Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) temporarily relax restrictions limiting expanded premises service at outside tables. Cape May City Solicitor Frank Corrado has been looking at ways for the city to easily allow some form of site expansion of liquor service through changes to its ordinance against open containers being taken outside a restaurant’s premises.
In some shore towns, space limitations are more severe than in others.
Stone Harbor Council began discussing ordinance changes that would allow restaurant owners to use outdoor space adjacent to the restaurant property, provided the neighboring property owner agrees.
According to Corrado, North Wildwood and Wildwood have developed ordinance models that could be used by other municipalities seeking to relax existing conditions on the use of outside space.
Key to the implementation of new protocols may be the speed with which the state handles ABC restrictions on liquor service, so that establishments could avoid lengthy requirements that are part of the normal approval process for expanded site service.
Bashaw also promoted a slow-streets initiative in his comments to City Council. The initiative, gaining prominence nationally with the COVID-19 crisis, urges municipalities to limit through-traffic on certain streets,  allowing them to be used more for foot and bicycle traffic. These limits can involve closing streets, restricting parking on certain streets, or even slowing speeds for through-vehicles to 5 miles an hour, according to Bashaw.
The slow streets program ties into greater use of outdoor space for communal activities, like dining while practicing social distancing.
Expanding the space for tables would allow for appropriate distancing, but it is just part of the mitigation that would have to accompany restaurant reopening. For restaurants, consideration also has to be given to employee personal protective equipment, to sanitation protocols, employee monitoring and effective capacity management, among other requirements.
The National Restaurant Association has promulgated guidance on restaurant reopening complete with mitigation protocols. These have been endorsed by the county reopening plan. The association also reminds readers on its website that the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) stated there is no evidence to support COVID-19 transmission with food.
The chain of activities that must begin with food arriving at restaurant kitchens, moving through storage and preparation to service by protected servers, to socially-distanced tables in an appropriately disinfected and sanitized environment, requires careful attention to a string of protocols and best practices.
Even if a well thought out end-to-end plan is religiously enforced to promote public health, it must also be explained in a way that potential tourists and diners feel comfortable. Gaining approval to open is a separate process from convincing customers that plans for their protection are comprehensive and effective.
With respect to the latter problem, the urgency facing local businesses may be a potential customer’s best indication of an establishment’s commitment to the necessary protocols.
The county’s Recovery Initiative Plan more than once points out the “economic devastation” that faces many local businesses if a solution cannot be found that “saves” some part of the core summer season of July and August. The early gradual relaxation of restrictions is part of a ramp up to that core season. Botching the effort by shortchanging mitigation protocols would run completely counter to the county’s business needs, as well as to the value all place on public health.
The Brookings Institute recently mapped industries most vulnerable to disruption by COVID-19-related economic impacts, along with the geographic locations of industry groups. The result was a designation of Cape May County as the seventh-most vulnerable region in the country, in terms of a virus-related recession. The county plan calls for restaurants to continue their operations for take-out food while planning for outdoor dining to begin May 26, at a maximum 75% normal capacity or less if dictated by the requirement that tables be placed 6 feet apart. June 1 is a goal for indoor dining, at a maximum 65% of capacity.
Everything continues to aim for a successful return to some form of “normalcy” for the key July and August months.
The context for all sectors of the county’s Recovery Initiative Plan, of which restaurants are but a part, is expanded testing capacity, robust contact tracing and appropriate and safe isolation for infected individuals. This is an essential component that the county must put in place in order for any business sector initiative to succeed.
A copy of the association’s COVID-19 Reopen Guidance is available on the Herald website.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.