Arizona To Lift Limits On Businesses, Bars

PHOENIX, AZ — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey on Thursday morning announced a sweeping set of rollbacks to COVID-19 restrictions to end capacity restrictions for businesses, reopen of all bars and lift other limits.

The slate of changes includes the following:

• End the requirement for local approval of events with more than 50 people.
• Change requirements on businesses to recommendations.
• Phase out all locally issued mask mandates. The state of Arizona never issued a statewide mandate.
• Let bars resume normal operating levels. They were forced to close during the pandemic unless they had a kitchen.

The announcements come as Arizona reported its lowest COVID-19 case totals in more than six months, according to the Associated Press. Some 138 cases were reported on Thursday.

The state of Arizona's COVID-19 cases spiked in December and January, and its seven-day case average peaked at 9,803.7 on Jan. 12, according to data collected by the AP.

The state also currently has the second-lowest seven-day case number average in the country — 46.2 —behind Hawaii, according to data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Bar owners and business owners may still require masks and social distancing inside their locations, Ducey said. But establishments that don't offer food may reopen after being shuttered since March of last year.

“In Arizona, we never did a shutdown, so it’s impossible to have a grand reopening," Ducey said in the release. "Instead, we are continuing to take reasonable, safe and sensible steps. The measures put in place last summer allowed Arizona to fight back COVID-19. I want to thank the local leaders who supported these efforts with their own measures, and the businesses who implemented them.

"Today, we are in a different spot, and we are also a lot smarter," he added. "I’m confident Arizona’s businesses and citizens will continue to practice the fundamentals and act responsibly as we gradually get back to normal."

Duceys also said the state of Arizona hit 3 million COVID-19 doses administered. In total, 3,041,773 doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been administered to 1,927,278 people in Arizona, and 1,185,986 Arizonans are fully vaccinated against the virus, Ducey said.

“As we’ve said all along, distribution of the vaccine is our best path to getting back to normal, and I want to thank the millions of Arizonans who have rolled up their sleeves to make the distribution and uptake so successful,” Ducey said.