Jason Delgado
Department of Business and Professional Regulation Secretary Halsey Beshears will begin drafting a plan next week to allow Florida’s struggling breweries and bars to reopen, he announced Saturday.
“Next week starting Friday, I’m going to set meetings throughout Florida with breweries and bars to discuss ideas on how to reopen,” Beshears tweeted. “We will come up with a Safe, Smart and Step-by-step plan based on input, science and relative facts on how to reopen as soon as possible.”
Next week starting Friday, I’m going to set meetings throughout Florida with breweries and bars to discuss ideas on how to reopen. We will come up with a Safe, Smart and Step-by-step plan based on input, science and relative facts on how to reopen as soon as possible.
— HalseyBeshears (@HalseyBeshears) July 25, 2020
Late last month, Florida banned alcohol consumption at its bars, for the second time this year, in response to a spike in the number of coronavirus cases.
The announcement comes after the Florida Brewers Guild sent a letter to Beshears and Gov. Ron DeSantis Tuesday, pleasing with state leaders to make an exception for their industry.
They warned the pair that more than 100 breweries are at-risk of permanently closing within the next two weeks if they remain restrained to a to-go only business model.
Roughly 90% of breweries in Florida have been closed longer than they have been open in 2020, according to the group. Coupled with the fact that to-go sales constitute less than 10% of the collective sales for most breweries, the group warned current limitations are an “untenable model for our industry.”
“The health of our community is paramount, but it cannot be at the life savings of hundreds of entrepreneurs, the livelihood of thousands of families, and the majority of an entire industry,” the letter said. “We will work with your administration in any way, but we MUST find a way to put our people back to work. Please help us put together a plan that safely reopens our industry.”
Beshears has said the order, which is backed by DeSantis, would remain in place until the growth in COVID-19 cases starts to decline. The state has become a hotspot for the epidemic, with DeSantis repeatedly pointing to young adults — including those who might congregate in bars — as one of the reasons for the surge in cases.
The Brewers Guild sent the letter on behalf of Florida’s more than 32o breweries, which represents more than 10,000 jobs in the Sunshine State.
On Sunday, the state reported an additional 9,344 cases, bringing the overall total to 423,855. The state added 73,808 cases during the one-week period from July 19 to Sunday, while 872 Florida residents died of the disease during the period, according to Department of Health numbers.
DeSantis initially stopped bars and nightclubs from serving alcohol for on-site consumption as part of an emergency order on March 20 to try to help stop the spread of the virus. The order was lifted on June 5 in all but South Florida, which has been hit hardest by the pandemic. While bars were allowed to start serving drinks again, the state limited indoor customer occupancy to 50 percent and allowed only table service.
But Beshears reimposed the ban on onsite consumption in the June 26 order because non-compliance with the safety guidelines in the bar industry was considered too widespread to enforce.
Bar owners have complained, in part, that the order unfairly discriminates against them, as establishments that serve food in conjunction with alcohol are able to remain open. Beshears’ order doesn’t affect restaurants that derive less than half of their gross revenue from the sale of alcohol.
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Content from the News Service of Florida was used in this report.
5 comments
Sonja Fitch
July 25, 2020 at 3:04 pm
Can’t wait to see this plan that is going to stop the TRUMP VIRUS spread! It ain’t going to work!
DisplacedCTYankee
July 26, 2020 at 9:48 am
I tried taking hydroxychloroquine and injecting bleach and anal light therapy, but there were some side effects. So I switched to beer drinking — at home! It’s inexpensive, readily available, and it’s ALCOHOL. It disinfects. So far, so good.
Note: The important words in this thoughtful post are “at home.” Alone. No germs, no worries.
Booner
July 25, 2020 at 4:04 pm
It is ridiculous for Florida’s Secretary of State to speak hopefully about carving out a health safety exemption to benefit a minority of non-essential businesses.
The 100 members of the Craft Brewers Association represents ONLY 1/3 or 33% of all 329 craft brewers in the state of Florida (2019 figures from the National Brewers Association).
So these beggars constitute only a MINORITY of all craft brewers in the state. They expect to go to the front of the line?
Let’s review how this segment of the industry operates. The establishments containing brew equipment (“brew- pubs”) have an astronomical overhead and so these establishments only survive if they have economy of scale.
We are not talking neighborhood tavern. These establishments requesting the exemption are massive, multi-level entertainment venues designed to entertain their customers for hours on end.
The only way these mega-taverns operate at a profit is to pack the nightly crowds into their warehouses. Several hundred intoxicated people milling about for hours indoors, in close proximity, and no masks worn while imbibing.
Is this extreme health risk advisable? I don’t think the Secretary of State has a medical background. Thousands of millennials mixing it up night after night across the state in these “entitled” 100 craft beer establishments. They drink their fill without a mask in an enclosed space for an extended period while socializing and flirting. Then they go home, to their families, to their jobs, carrying whatever virus is circulating in the closed air space of the bar.
Let’s say only 3% of customers are positive carriers of Covid-19 virus. It is virtually guaranteed a few infected people will frequent each warehouse pub night after night.
Conservatively there will be 10% to 20% alcoholics in these establishments at any given time. Does the Secretary of State intend to cater to Florida drunks and lushes with this Selfish and Stupid proposal?
Here is what Florida’s leadership overlooks (or is paid to look the other way) in their payoff to a few special craft brewer friends:
NO cure —
NO vaccine —
NO statewide mask mandate —
Florida hospitals overflowing with Covid-19 patients, straining precious resources —
Ever-increasing DEATH rate —
Let’s see — positive cases over 12,000 today in Florida, latest daily Covid-19 death count well north of 100 people. One person dead every 8 minutes.
Now think — what do you think will happen to these statistics if SS Beshears accedes to the needless carveout of the few non-essential corporate warehouse “Covid-19 Generation Factories”? Thousands of possibly infected vectors spreading out every night at closing time, heading home, into the community, not knowing or caring if they infect their parents, grandparents, coworkers, extended family members, church goers. And making their employees deal with drunks not wearing masks? Then the server or waitress takes the virus home to their family on account of thirsty but uncaring spreaders of disease? SHAME on you, Florida Brewers Guild!
To prioritize an industry that is probably the Number One Spreader of Covid-19 in Florida? These are not restaurants, NO ONE needs to drink alcohol except the 10% to 20% of Alcoholics that DiSantis and Beshears seriously considers supporting at the risk of all Floridians! Why not bail out Day Care Centers? Oh no, they have no money or corporate friends scratching each others backs, not like the selfish and stupid Florida Brewers Guild.
These brewers are too lazy to go into the refillable “Growler” business to save their business? OK, then, let them STARVE!.
Valerie Sprieser
July 25, 2020 at 5:16 pm
There is absolutely NO WAY TO OPEN BARS SAFELY!!!! Our numbers have surpassed NYC!
We have almost run out of hospital beds and ICU beds! Desantis is head if a death cult that is trying to kill every man, women and child in this state! He is a pathological murder!
Booner
July 26, 2020 at 1:17 pm
Even Trump’s closest advisors are backing off from the foolish idea of reopening these bars.
Trump acknowledged the coronavirus was growing into “big fires,” especially in Florida, and he said the state was in a “big, tough position.”
Coronavirus task force leader Deborah Birx warned that Florida was at risk of teetering into a full blown outbreak.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway went on to criticize the states that have become hotspots and blamed the governors.
“They opened up some of the industries too quickly, like bars,” Conway told reporters.
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