Indoor dining capacity not going up any time soon, Murphy says

NJBIZ - 11/5/2020

With the second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks slamming into the state, Gov. Phil Murphy said we are nowhere near expanding indoor dining capacity beyond 25%.
“We are in a holding pattern,” the governor said at a remotely-held COVID-19 press briefing on Thursday. “I think it would be irresponsible to be otherwise right now.”
He maintained still that “there’s no evidence” that “at restaurant X, there was an outbreak of Y people.”
Outbreaks up and down the state have been traced back to indoor social gatherings between friends and family, where masks are not worn and 6-foot physical distancing isn’t followed, Murphy said.
But that has not stopped local governments such as Hoboken, Newark and Paterson from restricting restaurants and bars, such as limiting when they can stay open. Those rules will be allowed to fly even though a state executive prohibits towns and cities from setting up COVID-19 restrictions.
“I don’t see how a quick curfew because of a spike will help as it isn’t as if you can only get COVID at night. You can get it at a shopping center, supermarket, or a restaurant for lunch," Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said Wednesday.
Murphy, in response to the restrictions announced by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, maintained that "these are literally steps at the edges that the mayor took, which we think are smart steps, but are not counter to our executive orders."
Business groups have lamented their inability to break even with the tight capacity requirements.
While outdoor dining was a relief for restaurant owners, and many towns and cities closed down their streets so that eateries could expand their footprint, the gloomier fall and winter weather has made those arrangements useless.
“I have enormous sympathy on the small business front,” the governor added. “How can you not?”
The governor previously suggested that he would expand indoor dining capacity by increments of 10%, but walked back on those plans as daily new cases and the total hospital count steadily crept upward across the state.
Total daily counts and hospitalizations are consistently reaching levels not seen in months.
Those numbers “show that the second wave of the coronavirus is no longer something off in the future,” Murphy said on Thursday. “It’s coming in now.”
Nevertheless, restaurant owners say they’ve continued to feel a financial crush because of the reduced capacity.
“As we get ready to enter the eighth month of COVID and do not see an end in sight, it becomes even more important to ensure that New Jersey businesses and nonprofits can sustain,” Michele Siekerka, president and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association, said in an Oct. 22 statement.
“Many have only been opened with limited capacity since July, and we know that businesses simply cannot sustain on limited capacities.”
The New Jersey Economic Development Authority set aside a $35 million pot of COVID-relief grants for restaurants hit hard by the pandemic. That’s part of a $70 million grant program, for which nearly 23,000 businesses have pre-registered.
Applications opened at 9 a.m. on Thursday and will stay open for a week. As of noon on Thursday, 3,324 restaurants submitted grant applications, according to Virginia Pellerin, an NJEDA spokesperson.