Can you walk up to the bar at your favorite restaurant, tavern or tasting room in New York state and order a drink?
It’s been widely reported since last week that the answer is no. But it’s not completely clear.
In a July 16 conference call with reporters, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the ban on walk-up bar service as one of two new measures aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus at bars and restaurants. The other directive requires the sale of food to accompany a drink order, which has also led to some confusion.
Cuomo’s announcement specified that orders at “bar tops” can only be made by patrons who are seated at least six feet from one another or separated by barriers. Ordering a drink at the bar and taking it to a table is not allowed, Cuomo said.
But the walk-up bar ban and the food-with-alcohol rule were not addressed equally in official state documents put out last week.
The food-with-alcohol requirement is included in the written version of the executive order posted on the governor’s official site on July 16. But the ban on walk-up bar service is not mentioned in that executive order, which modifies earlier bar and restaurant restrictions.
It’s also not mentioned in what the state calls the “guidance” issued by the State Liquor Authority to clarify the July 16 executive order. Again, that guidance mentions the food-with-alcohol requirement, but makes no reference to a new ban on walk-up bar service.
The most official-sounding reference to the prohibition on ordering at the bars came in a news release issued by the governor’s office on July 16: “The Governor also announced that all restaurants and bars statewide will be subject to new requirements that they must only serve alcohol to people who are ordering and eating food and that all service at bar tops must only be for seated patrons who are socially distanced by six feet or separated by physical barriers,” according to the release, which is posted on the governor’s official web site.
Jason Cornwall, a spokesman for Cuomo, said today that the requirement that customers be seated in order to be served was contained in earlier guidance from the state on reopening indoor dining. For example, an earlier FAQ-style advisory from the State Liquor Authority specified “all consumption must be while seated at tables, bars, counters, or similar contrivances.”
Still, it doesn’t seem that clear to many bar owners. Does it prohibit a customer from ordering a beer at the bar and taking it to a table?
“I’ve been checking with other owners and they are similarly in the dark,” said Lauren Monforte, owner of Beer Belly Deli & Pub on Westcott Street in Syracuse. Monforte initially blocked off all access to the bar at Beer Belly after Cuomo’s announcement on July 16, but has since modified it to allow seated customers to conform with the directive.
“We reopened the bar for people to sit and eat but made an in house rule that no one can walk up to the bar or stand at the bar for any reason and no one can walk around holding a beer,” she said.
In the tasting room at Middle Ages Brewing Co. on Syracuse’s near West Side, owner Issac Rubenstein has not yet prohibited orders at the bar.
“At this point, it’s not clear that it’s a real mandate,” he said. “If it is, we will certainly comply. But it’s not in any executive order that I can find.”
Rubenstein said he’s reluctant to change to table service because he believes that is actually less safe than bar service. His employees would have to approach tables of seated people not wearing masks to take and deliver orders.
“That seems to be putting my employees at more risk,” he said.
That opinion is shared by the directors of New York states’ brewery and winery trade groups.
“We believe it is more dangerous to have people serving table spread around the tasting room,” said Paul Leone, director of the New York State Brewers Association. “You’re creating multiple touch-points, where at the bar you’d have one touch-point. That (the table requirement) seems like it would create more chances for the virus to spread.”
Tasting rooms at wineries, breweries and distilleries are often not staffed to provide the kind of table service offered by many restaurants in any case.
“It’s not clear this is a mandate, but if it becomes one I think many brewery tasting rooms will be forced to close,” Leone said. “For one thing, it’s going to require extra staff at a time when revenues are already coming up short.”
Leone and his counterparts in the winery and distilling industry have been in contact with state officials about the issue.
“We ask that the Governor’s office reconsider the requirement for seated table service as tasting room bars can be adapted for 6ft social distancing,” they wrote last week to Robert Duffy, the former lieutenant governor who has been advising Cuomo on the reopening of businesses. “Seated tastings with food would cripple an already hurting industry. ... Walk up service, when controlled, reduces contact all around. If the Governor’s office can find a way to allow this, craft beverage manufacturers will be in a much better position to stay in business, the idea of hiring additional staff for seated table service at an already limited capacity will cause many to close their doors.”
MORE ON FOOD AND DINING
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Don Cazentre writes for NYup.com, syracuse.com and The Post-Standard. Reach him at dcazentre@nyup.com, or follow him at NYup.com, on Twitter or Facebook.
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