THE GIST
“Local businesses follow rules” isn’t a very compelling headline for stories about COVID-19 behavior. But while the majority of shops, restaurants, and other retail outlets in the country are keeping to the straight-and-narrow, a minority of outraged business owners are getting outsized attention.
That chorus of those openly flouting rules is small, but dangerous. By defying public health orders, these businesses have faced consequences ranging from citations to revoked liquor licenses. But squeaky wheels get the grease, and across the country, breweries and the state guilds that represent them perform a balancing act: how to communicate their displeasure with what they say are sometimes unfair regulations, while also signaling that breweries are taking COVID-19 seriously.
COVID-19 cases are falling while winter weather forces Americans inside, yet new COVID-19 variants pose a threat. Thirty-nine states have some form of restriction on bars (whether reducing hours, limiting capacity, or prohibiting indoor dining) as of Jan. 22.
Few hospitality businesses would say these regulations are perfect. But in some places, months of lobbying state and local governments to alter them haven’t been successful. As winter weather limits the appeal of drinking and eating outside, breweries are becoming increasingly desperate for the ability to increase capacity, either indoors or outdoors. How far are they willing to push it?
At risk are livelihoods and lives; the stakes don’t get much higher. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) warns the U.S. will likely reach half a million deaths from COVID-19 by the middle of February. New disease modeling from Columbia University indicates that even as millions of people are vaccinated across the country, social distancing and mask-wearing must remain in place until at least July. Relaxing restrictions in February—or collectively refusing to follow them—would, the model predicts, cause an additional 29 million U.S. infections.
WHY IT MATTERS
The tension between livelihoods and lives is one that’s plagued the hospitality industry since March. But what’s changed in recent months is that the first round of Payroll Protection Program (PPP) loans that 85% of small breweries took advantage of last year has dried up, though a second round opened Jan. 11. Outdoor service that seemed appealing to customers in the spring, summer, and fall is less so during a cold, windy winter. Local restrictions on businesses continue to shift as case numbers grow or shrink. In some places, this is creating an increasingly frantic opposition to public health orders.
“Most days, I feel like my back is against a wall. Because the guild is doing everything that we can do to facilitate change [in regulations], but we don’t make the decisions,” says Christina LaRue, executive director of the Oregon Brewers Guild.
Oregon’s COVID cases are on a late-January decline—down -47% across the two weeks ending Jan. 29—after experiencing large spikes in both new infections and deaths in early December and mid-January. But as of Jan. 28, 26 of Oregon’s 36 counties are still in the “extreme risk” category, as defined by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA), which takes into account a variety of factors including case rates and population density.
Oregon breweries, LaRue says, have taken issue with Gov. Kate Brown’s order, in effect since early December, which prohibits indoor dining and caps outdoor capacity at 50 people, regardless of the size of the outdoor space. Outdoor tents may only have two walls to allow for airflow, though igloo-style structures are permitted. LaRue says the 50-person cap on outdoor service makes no sense for breweries like Bend’s Crux Fermentation Project, which has an outdoor area the size of a football field.
She says Crux, other breweries, and the guild have been in “constant communication” with Gov. Brown for more than six weeks, asking her to increase the outdoor capacity cap. Their pleas so far haven’t moved the needle.
“They can do it and they can do it safely,” LaRue says, referring to Crux’s ability to serve more than 50 people outdoors. When asked what has convinced her that the business can do so safely, LaRue cites Crux’s outdoor hand-washing stations and more than six feet of distance between outdoor tables, but admits she has no “statistical data or scientific data.”
Oregon breweries’ frustrations had been growing since the order went into effect in December, prompting LaRue to include some strong guidance in the guild’s January newsletter to its members.
“We had started hearing rumbles of folks considering just not abiding by the rules any longer, so I made clear: The guild does not support that,” she says.
It’s a conflicted spot LaRue finds herself in. She’s been in the beer industry for 15 years, and says it’s “heartbreaking” to watch businesses lay off workers or close for good. “I tell [breweries] I feel their frustration. That their frustrations are valid,” she says.
But practically in the next breath, she’s urging members not to break the law. “The only way to move us forward is to ensure that you are following the executive order and state mandates and we continue to pressure the governor,” she says.
It’s crucial breweries comply, LaRue says, because “the governor reacts to that.” When businesses flout the rules, it draws negative attention from the governor to an entire industry. In other states, groups have seized upon examples of rule-breaking bars to lobby for stricter regulations on alcohol sales across the board.
Data from the U.K.’s Office for National Statistics shows that lawmakers are right to be concerned about bars and restaurants as potential sites of virus transmission. The average death rate from COVID-19 across occupations in the U.K. is 24 per 100,000. For chefs, the rate is 103 per 100,000. For pub managers, 219 per 100,000. The U.S. has also recorded outbreaks traceable to restaurants and bars. For example, roughly 25% of Louisiana’s new cases between March and August that occurred outside of nursing homes or prisons traced to restaurants and bars, The New York Times reports. Some groups, including the Michigan Restaurant & Lodging Association (MRLA), are calling on state governments to prioritize hospitality workers for vaccination in order to keep them safe while boosting that sector of the economy.
“A more comprehensive reintegration strategy … includes prioritizing vaccination for the broader hospitality industry and establishing clear metrics for phased reopening to 100 percent capacity of indoor dining,” MRLA CEO Justin Winslow said in a statement in January.
Even acknowledging the risks, some breweries say opening with fewer restrictions is the only way for them to continue to survive. But acknowledging the risks means confronting a terrifying reality: There is potential for any public business to become a locus for lethal viral spread.
Thus, advocating for reopening without restrictions would make breweries appear indifferent to the gravity of COVID-19 in the eyes of many potential customers. The goal—advocate for fewer restrictions, but abide by the ones that exist—requires delicacy.
“I separate what we as a business would lobby or argue or advocate for, versus what we do,” says Ron Abbott, co-owner of Seedstock Brewery in Denver. “We follow the rules. If capacity is 25%, we’re at 25%. If we have to sanitize 12 times an hour, we sanitize 12 times an hour. I don’t think disobeying the rules is the right forum to voice our displeasure.”
In Denver, breweries can only be open indoors at 25% capacity. For Seedstock Brewing, that’s 12 people. The brewery doesn’t package its beer beyond Crowlers, so the taproom is its only source of revenue. Abbott says the brewery is barely breaking even; early January sales are down -65% versus a year ago. If current sales trends continue, that would translate to a $250,000 decline for the year.
He says he expresses his concerns about capacity regulations to city-level authorities, but flouting the rules is out of the question. Not only would it draw further scrutiny from regulators, but it would send a message to customers that Seedstock isn’t concerned about their safety.
“My responsibility to customers is also to make them feel safe, to have them have an enjoyable experience,” Abbott says.
He adds that the actual science of whether things like mask-wearing and social distancing curb the spread of COVID-19 is, to him, less important than whether customers perceive them as important.
“I don’t look at that so much from a health standpoint as from a customer experience standpoint—if my customers feel safe, that’s what I want to do.”
Words by Kate Bernot