The DeSantis administration moved Florida into Phase One on May 18, 2020. Phase One allowed Florida restaurants to operate at 50% capacity, but bars remained closed.
The DeSantis administration moved Florida into Phase Two on June 5, 2020.
Bars, and other vendors licensed to sell alcoholic beverages, were permitted to operate at 50% of indoor capacity and maximum outdoor capacity. Restaurants were to operate identically. Nightclubs were still restricted from reopening.
That permission was short lived, on June 26, state officials said non-compliance with the guidelines was too widespread to enforce and bars were once again closed to on on-site consumption “I want them to be able to operate but I also want them to do it consistent with the step-by-step plan, and we just weren’t able to get that done,” DeSantis said
Sounds fair, maybe, at least until you look at restaurants.
Restaurants across the state of Florida are required to limit customer entry to 50 percent of capacity. Seating must be staggered and limited to ensure seated parties are separated by a distance of at least six feet, in accordance with CDC guidelines. Duval County also has a mandatory mask requirement for public and indoor locations, and in other situations where individuals cannot socially distance.
Jax Examiner inspected 5 local restaurants a day over the past 3 weeks.
Of 100 local restaurants we inspected for compliance, none were in compliance with both 50 percent of capacity and staggered seating to keep guests separated by a distance of at least six feet. Not one restaurant, and only 17 out of 100 were in full compliance with the mask mandate, IE. masks on, unless eating.
Even scarier, many restaurants have used outdoor seating to help make up for lost indoor seating, which is fine, until it starts to rain and that outdoor seating isn’t covered, or when it is, high winds accompany the rain.
When that happens, the indoor seating, which was already well above 50% swells to max capacity, or more, within minutes.
Well, maybe alcohol is the problem, you know how people get.
Sure, I know how people get, I also know that over 75% of the restaurants we inspected serve alcohol.
So alcohol and Covid-19 don’t mix if you’re at a bar, but it’s okay if you’re at a restaurant with a bar, or that otherwise serves alcohol.
Why is that so?
Could it be that a dozen leadership members of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association were part of the DeSantis task force to determine when and how Florida would reopen? Or that members of the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association were also big money donors to the DeSantis Campaign?
Imagine if you could control, or otherwise influence, whether a competitor that sells some of the same products as you sell, is allowed to open for business, or must stay closed, while your own business is allowed to operate.
I’m not saying that it is time to get back to business as usual in the State of Florida.
I am saying that laws and executive orders should be enforced uniformly across the board.
Of course, that has never been business as usual in Duval County, or the State of Florida.
Today a bar can not serve you a beer, but a restaurant can.
Yesterday Blacks couldn’t eat at the lunch counter, but whites could.
Yesterday Black men couldn’t walk down the street without getting rousted, or cited by JSO, but white women could ignore pristine sidewalks and walk, jog, or push a stroller in the street, and get nothing but a wave from JSO.
Hold up. That wasn’t yesterday, that’s today, well, it was yesterday too, and today, and will, more than likely be tomorrow.
Selective or targeted enforcement of the law is wrong, regardless of who it benefits, or who it disadvantages.
And right now restaurants are benefiting and bars are being disadvantaged.
Florida Liquor Licenses for bars are not cheap but for restaurants they are. A restaurant that serves alcohol can purchase a SRX licenses (Special Restaurant licenses allowing Beer, Wine & Liquor sales) for a nominal fee, usually around $300/yr for Beer/Wine and $1820/yr for Beer, Wine & Liquor sales.
Meanwhile the cost of a Florida liquor license is determined by two things; the type and the county. Most quota liquor licenses (what a full bar needs) cost between $50,000.00 and $750,000.00. What is a quota license?
Answer: For every increase in the population of a county by 7500 residents, a new quota license is created. In order to obtain a quota (liquor) license, you must either buy an existing license, or enter the quota drawing to win the right to apply for a quota license. The winner may then apply for the issuance of the new license.
Then there’s an annual license fee, from $468 to $1820. In addition to the annual license fee, there is a one-time (Hughes Act) fee of $10,750. This fee is used for alcohol and drug abuse education, treatment, and prevention programs.
Why? Why are the number of bars limited? Why do bars have to pay so much more than a restaurant to sell the same thing? Answer: To create an artificial scarcity in alcohol, which allows the state to charge exuberant license fees as well as additional taxes and an assortment of other fees and regulations, all of which put money in the state’s pocket
Money they take from the bar owners, who in turn must charge their customers more than they would otherwise.
Most of it is greed, some it goes back to Blue Laws.
“Blue laws, also known as Sunday laws, are laws designed to restrict or ban some or all Sunday activities for religious reasons, particularly to promote the observance of a day of worship or rest. Blue laws may also restrict shopping or ban sale of certain items on specific days, most often on Sundays.”~Wiki
Blue laws were a way to force morality, or at least the religious beliefs, of those in charge upon others throughout the United States, but especially in the South.
There was a time in Florida when you couldn’t buy alcohol or sex toys on Sunday.
If you drink in a restaurant that’s okay, but you heathens need to stay away from the bars, and stop playing with your sex toys.
So, made up morality, and swindled money.
What about that money? Should the State of Florida be giving some of that money back to bar owners?
I know, you’re probably wondering what I’ve been smoking, no worries though, I was in a restaurant, so it’s okay.
Seriously though. Say I paid for a Florida Liquor License to open a bar two years ago.
Between $50,000.00 and $750,000.00 for the license, $10,750 for the Hughes Act. I’m not even going to include all the other nickel and dime bullshit fees and other mumble jumble the State of Florida throws at bar owners.
I ran my bar very successfully for the first two years, then in my third year Covid hit and I was forced to shut down by the state, and now, unless things change soon, I might have to close for good. The State of Florida still has the money I paid them so I could sell alcohol but they won’t let me sell any alcohol.
I purchased a license that is, for the most part useless.
Let’s take that license expense and divide it by three years.
Between $20,250.00 and $253,000.00 would be the money I spent for my Florida Liquor License each year, a license that I have not been able to use most of this year. Hey Ron, when do I get my refund?
This is all hypothetical for me. I’m not out any money for the bar I don’t have that I didn’t buy a Florida Liquor License for.
But for thousands of bar owners across Florida this is all too real.
The Florida Liquor License they spent between $50,000.00 and $750,000.00 for is worthless. It does not allow them to serve alcohol in their bars, but the $300 to $1820 license the restaurant across the street from their bar bought allows them to sell that same alcohol to THE BARS CUSTOMERS!
And every day, and every night that restaurant sells to the bar’s customers increases the likelihood that even if that bar is ever allowed to sell alcohol again, it may have lost that customer(s) for good.
Bars are expected to pay more money for a license to sell the same product, and then bars are expected to follow executive orders that restaurants are allowed to skirt with a wink and a nod.
It is one thing to lose a business because of poor management, or a global pandemic.
It is an altogether different thing to lose a business, at best, because of selective enforcement of laws and executive orders, at worst, because of backroom deals and preferential treatment to campaign donors and cronies.
If this continues no one will ever tell any jokes about Ron DeSantis walking into a bar…because there won’t be any.