“While we aren’t near the peak of the pandemic from earlier this year, none of us wants to go back there, and we feel these restrictions will help limit further community spread,” Lightfoot was quoted as saying in a press release. On Monday, the mayor made no apologies for playing the heavy - again. to prevent people from gathering outside those stores. She also cut off citywide liquor sales at 9 p.m. The mayor famously shut down the lakefront in late March because Chicagoans couldn’t be trusted to maintain social distance. Her arms-folded, stern-faced image inspired a hysterical stream of memes she cleverly embraced. Throughout the pandemic, Lightfoot has not hesitated to do whatever she believes is necessary to keep the city safe. We are dangerously close to going back to a dangerous state of conditions.” “I don’t want to be that person if I don’t have to. That’s who I must be for you and everyone else in this city to make sure that we continue to be safe,” the mayor said on that day. “Some of you have joked that I’m like the mom who will turn the car around when you’re acting up. Last week, Lightfoot warned of a rollback unless young people, who account for 30% of new COVID-19 cases in the city, get the message. So we’d rather work and have some of our outdoor dining still open and 25% capacity in the restaurant and six people-per-table than to go to total lockdown with no indoor dining at all.” “If we go into total lockdown like we were a few months ago, this will be the death of the hospitality industry in the city of Chicago. We see that cities like Miami and San Antonio, Phoenix and Los Angeles are really going way backwards,” Toia said. “We do not want to go back to shelter-in-place. Illinois Restaurant Association President Sam Toia, while not happy about the rollback, is willing to live with it if it means avoiding even more rigid restrictions that force restaurants to close their doors to indoor dining again. Then, on June 26, indoor customers were again allowed in restaurants and bars, with a limit on capacity. It was just over a month ago that the city allowed bars to reopen to serving customers in open-air settings. Basically a 33-to-40% occupancy reduction outdoors is going to be a death blow for way more than bars. “Very importantly, this reduces maximum table sizes from 10 to six for everyone outdoors. How hard depends on how long these restrictions last,” Doerr said. This will make it harder for these businesses to hang on. “The hospitality industry has lost half of its jobs since March in the state of Illinois. Pat Doerr, managing director of the 200-plus-member Hospitality Business Association of Chicago, said he wants to see the “science behind” the city’s rollback decision. We’re gonna take a number of measures later this week to specifically hone in on that population,” he said. “What we’re seeing is what you call `bubble trouble,’ where we really need to restrict the number of individuals that folks congregate with. Mayekar said Chicago “remains the largest open city in America” and the “surgical” restrictions are intended to keep it that way, preventing another stay-at-home shutdown. “Similarly where we’ve dialed back the maximum party size within indoor dining from 10 people to six people, that’s just recognizing that we want to do what we can to limit the number of folks that people are having that close contact with within six feet, more than 10 minutes without a mask.” For all of those reasons, they are broadly considered one of the higher-risk settings,” she said. They’re often needing to raise their voice, project and yell. “People are not only talking and socializing and having fun. to keep us from having to take the very large steps backwards that we want to avoid at all costs,” Arwady said during a conference call with reporters.Īrwady branded bars “one of the higher-risk scenarios,” in part because they’re a magnet for 18-to-29-year-olds, among whom cases are rising faster than any other age group in Chicago. “For all of those reasons, we felt strongly that it was necessary to work to take some focused actions now. And the “percent positivity rate” remains over 5%. It’s now at 233, which the Centers for Disease Control considers a “high incidence state.” The 14-day average has topped 200. Allison Arwady warned of a rollback if the 7-day rolling average of new coronavirus cases topped 200. Pritzker releases safety guidance for Phase 4 with reopening of indoor restaurant services, gyms, museums.Indoor dining on Chicago’s menu next week, but with limits.
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