Free Republic

RALEIGH - Governor Roy Cooper announced Tuesday, North Carolina will be moving into a “Safer-at-Home” Phase 2.5 beginning Friday at 5 p.m. In this new phase gyms and indoor exercise facilities will be able to open again at 30 percent capacity, but bars, nightclubs, movie theaters, indoor entertainment and amusement parks will remain closed. Face coverings will be required when working out at gyms in “Safer-at-Home” Phase 2.5. They will also be required for any individuals when in public over the age of 5. Additionally, playgrounds will be allowed to open while museums and aquariums will be able to open...

Gov. Tom Wolf Tuesday presented a fall legislative agenda that included a push for legalizing marijuana for recreational use by adults. Harrisburg, PA – August 25, 2020Commonwealth Media Services By Greg Pickel | gpickel@pennlive.com A successful return to both K-12 schools and colleges could lead to an easing of the targeted bar and restaurant restrictions in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf said as much on Monday, more than a month after he and Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine signed orders that limit indoor and outdoor occupancy, forbid bar service, and require prepared food to be purchased if a customer wants...

My wife & I went to Mass yesterday for the first time in over a month of the churches being shut down. While it was joyful to be back in church, I was initially angry at the procedures and spacing. I noted the bleached out backs and sides of the pews from the repeated wiping. It was distressing to see our priest speaking the word of God through a mask. It was like nothing I have ever seen when he squirted his hands with sanitizer before offering us the Host. Then I thought of Christians around the world, in Iraq,...

School districts developing their plans for reopening for the new academic year should find ways to offer as many outdoor activities as possible, from classes to recess and lunchtime, the nation's top infectious disease expert recommended in an online discussion Thursday. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also suggested in his Facebook Live chat with Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo that, on school buses, windows should remain open and students wear their masks as much as possible. "Get as much outdoors as you can. If you look at the superspreader events that have...

Speaking with Brown University’s Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the incoming dean at the School of Public Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the country needs to do one thing to avoid a catastrophe in the fall or winter. Addressing Arizona’s ability to flatten the curve of the massive outbreak that started in July, Fauci said that the same five or six “fundamental principles” of prevention apply everywhere. These are “universal wearing of a mask, physical distancing, avoid crowds, outdoor is better than indoors, wash your hands,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said. “Stay away from...

Young Russians are partying again, seeking a return to normal life and willing to risk a coronavirus surge. “We are people, not robots, and want to have a life,” said a bar patron (and doctor).

TALLAHASSEE — Florida’s top business regulator plans to start meeting with bar operators and craft brewers, amid concerns about establishments closing permanently if a state ban on serving drinks for on-site consumption remains in place. In a tweet Saturday, Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears said he will begin setting aside time Friday to discuss his June 26 order that banned on-site consumption at bars to try to help stem the spread of COVID-19. “Next week starting Friday, I’m going to set meetings throughout Florida with breweries and bars to discuss ideas on how to reopen,” Beshears...

The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board released updated guidelines Wednesday for bars and restaurants in green counties that serve alcohol on-premises. The guidelines, designed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, come during a recent rise in the number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases in Pa. that can partially be attributed to the places where people are drinking alcohol, Gov. Tom Wolf said. Here are the new guidelines for liquor licensees: Sales of alcohol for on-premises consumption are only permissible as part of a larger transaction that includes a meal purchase. The term “meal” is defined in section 406 of the Pennsylvania...

Gov. Tom Wolf said Tuesday that the state has evidence indicating a recent rise in the number of daily confirmed coronavirus cases in Pa. can, at least in part, be traced back to places people are drinking alcohol. It’s part of the reason why Wolf, in conjunction with Health Department Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, ordered all bars that cannot serve a meal to close while also mandating that alcohol can only be consumed on a business’ premise if it is sold within a meal transaction. A meal is defined by the state’s Liquor Control Board as food that is prepared...

Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration has released a list of answers to frequently asked questions about his administration’s recently-announced targeted coronavirus mitigation order. The new restrictions that were announced last week put gathering limitations back in place -- only 25 people can be at an inside event and 250 outside -- and also prohibits bar service. Additionally, customers can only consume alcohol at a bar, restaurant, or food service business on-site if they purchase a meal. Music and night clubs must close, as well. “We know what will happen if we wait until cases rise exponentially before taking action,” Health Department...

Frustrated by Gov. Tom. Wolf’s latest COVID-19 restrictions on the food service industry, restaurant owners in central Pennsylvania are armed for a fight. Representatives from dozens of establishments gathered earlier today at Bonefish Grille in Lower Allen Township to express their dissatisfaction with the governor and his recent mandates. In the coming days, they plan to spread word about a petition demanding change. “How can one person have this much power? How can one person go across our constitution, stomp on it and never look back? And there’s nothing we can do? He has too much power,” said organizer Matt...

Bars and restaurants in New York City that receive three “strikes” for failing to enforce social distancing will be forced to close, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday. In addition, bars and restaurants across the state will be allowed to serve alcohol only to patrons also ordering food, and walk-up bar service will not be allowed. The governor announced the restrictions after numerous reports of compliance issues. “There is significant evidence of failure to comply,” Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters. “It’s wrong, it’s dangerous, it’s selfish, it’s unacceptable. It’s also illegal.”

Florida regulators banned drinking alcohol at bars statewide as the state reported a record-shattering 8,942 new cases of coronavirus Friday. “Effective immediately, the Department of Business and Professional Regulation is suspending on premises consumption of alcohol at bars statewide,‘' according to a tweet from Halsey Beshears, secretary of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The department could not be immediately reached for further details.

Swiss police are looking for a forgetful individual who left something rather important on a train -- a package full of gold bars, worth more than $190,000. The parcel containing the gold bars was found in the carriage of a Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) train traveling from the northeastern Swiss town of St Gallen to Lucerne, a city in the center of the country, in October last year, authorities said. Despite "extensive investigations," the owner of the high-value package had not been tracked down, officials said in a statement published in the local government Lucerne Canton gazette.

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed the state's bars to open for outside operations, stopping a legislative end run around the state's phased reopening from the shutdown Cooper ordered to slow the spread of Covid-19. North Carolina's bars have been closed since Cooper shut restaurants and bars down onMarch 17. After Cooper allowed restaurants and breweries to reopen in Phase 2 but left bars closed, the General Assembly passed a bill that would have allowed bars to serve customers outside, permitted restaurants to operate at full capacity and limited the state's ability to to close...

Pa. bars, restaurants, and retail food service businesses now have a game plan for what will be allowed when they reopen amid the coronavirus pandemic. New guidance released by Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration on Wednesday offers a detailed list of how many people can visit a spot at one time, whether or not masks will be mandated, and what the rules are in specific counties. Here’s everything you need to know. What can reopen, and when? Bars, restaurants, and retail food service businesses located in a green county of Wolf’s color-coded reopening plan can offer limited dine-in options indoors and...

They’re partying like it’s 2019. Lockdown-weary New Yorkers ditched the distancing to get social instead this weekend - transforming parts of the Big Apple into a raucous, late-season Mardi Gras. Yet the city’s COVID-be-damned attitude was nothing compared with the scene in Belmar, NJ, a beach popular with Staten Islanders and Brooklynites. Huge crowds waited shoulder-to-shoulder on the boardwalk for their turn to buy beach badges. “The line for beach badges was like four non-socially distanced blocks long,” tweeted Jarrett Seidler, who described the boardwalk as “obscenely packed.” Outside popular bars on the Upper East Side, the Upper West Side,...

Gov. Jared Polis announced Monday afternoon that all on-site dining will be prohibited at restaurants and bars in Colorado. The restrictions are part of an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Drive-thru, take-out and delivery services will still be permitted. The order will remain in effect for 30 days. It goes into effect 8 a.m. Tuesday. The order follows similar ones already in place in Denver and Summit counties.

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced late Sunday that the Big Apple’s nightlife will shut down and its restaurants and bars will only provide take-out or delivery service as authorities struggle to get ahead of the mounting coronavirus pandemic. The restrictions will take effect Tuesday at 9 a.m. and are similar to measures announced in Ohio, Washington DC and across much of western Europe, all of which have been hit by the deadly virus, too. “Our lives are all changing in ways that were unimaginable just a week ago,” de Blasio said in a statement released by City Hall, which acknowledged...

Down goes Ohio bars & restaurants. Good luck to all.