Bar Owners Blast Cooper’s Meaningless and Contradictory Phase 3

RALEIGH – Governor Roy Cooper announced a move into Phase 3 of reopening on Wednesday. Well, a modified version of the original Phase 3, meaning it is actually not Phase 3.

It is, however, consistent with the entirety of Cooper’s restriction edicts in that the rules are arbitrary, inconsistent, and contradictory. For instance, you may have heard bars can open; but bar owners know the conditional permission slip is entirely meaningless for the struggling businesses.

Don’t let @RoyCooperNC fool you. He didn’t open bars. He gave us 30% capacity OUTDOORS only. Out of 93 bars surveyed by the N.C. Bar and Tavern Association, only six qualify to have more than 20 customers. Fifty-nine have a dozen outside seats or fewer.

— Zack Medford (@ZackTM) October 1, 2020

Medford is the founder of the N.C. Bar and Tavern Association, and has been calling out the blatant inconsistencies in these arbitrary rules for months. Breweries serving drinks indoors could open; but bars could not. Now, bars are allowed to open — for outdoor service only — but only at 30 percent capacity. Medford demonstrates what that actually means:

According to @NC_Governor new EO, a bar would need more than 7,000 square feet of outdoor space to host 50 customers. To put that in perspective, a bar patio the size of an NCAA basketball court would be allowed just 35 customers. That is about six picnic tables.

— Zack Medford (@ZackTM) September 30, 2020

If a bar has a patio the size of a tennis court, they could hold 15 people. Can a bar turn a profit on 15 customers?

— Zack Medford (@ZackTM) September 30, 2020

Meanwhile, you can have 25 strangers in your house, or 50 strangers in your backyard. Restaurants can have 50 percent capacity indoors, because we all know that the virus knows whether it’s in a bar or restaurant.

The nonsense continues. Mass gathering outdoors? 50 people. An outdoor venue? 100 people. A movie theater can have up to 100 people in each showroom.

Outdoor stadiums with capacity of 10,000 or more? They’re allowed seven percent capacity (thousands for most big sports stadiums). A sports venue with less than 10,000 person capacity? 100 people max.

And to drive it all home, Cooper reiterated that wearing a mask remains mandated for everyone five years old and up. Health Czar Mandy Cohen, admitting that almost all transmission of the virus in in home settings (not bars or restaurants), suggested North Carolinians wear masks at home with their family.

Again, Cooper cites the science of masks’ effectiveness. This is the best science of how effective masks are at reducing transmission of respiratory viruses, as curated by the almighty World Health Organization (WHO):

If you can’t see the fine print; that is 9 out of 10 of the best studies the WHO could find that conclude there is “no significant reduction” in secondary transmission.

After Cooper’s announcement Wednesday, a bar owner in Greenville may have put it best :

Roy Cooper is still a bitch.

— Club 519 (@Club_Five19) September 30, 2020