Vote To Reimpose COVID-19 Restrictions Delayed By County

ROCKVILLE, MD — The Montgomery County Council has delayed a vote to reinstate certain COVID-19 restrictions until next week to give residents a chance to comment, officials said.

The vote was scheduled for Thursday, but was postponed until Tuesday, Nov. 10.

The new restrictions, all part of County Executive Marc Elrich's amended order, would limit public gatherings to 25 people or less, cap dining inside restaurants at 25 percent, and require food service establishments to keep a daily record of all dining patrons for contact tracing purposes.

Religious facilities, museums, art galleries, bowling alleys, and retail shops would also have to reduce their capacity to 25 percent or 25 people, whichever is lower.

The changes were slated to effect at 5 p.m. Nov. 6 before the County Council delayed their implementation.

"I just want our public to understand that we hear you. We feel your pain authentically, sincerely, and deeply," Councilmember Gabe Albornoz said Thursday. "And these are extraordinarily difficult decisions. We are undeniably stuck between a rock and a hard place."

Ultimately, officials decided to wait until next week, citing the need for public input.

Dr. Earl Stoddard, the county's head of emergency management, acknowledged that businesses should have more time to prepare for any changes.

"I think that we can attempt to give a little bit more lead time — but at the time same time, it will not be what we would like to do, which is provide weeks of notice," Stoddard said. "In all of our efforts, we want to provide plenty of notice for public comment and businesses to respond. But obviously we are still in the emergency situation. So it does not afford us the opportunities we would like to (have) under all the circumstances."

Late-Night Alcohol Sales Program Suspended

While the county will not yet reimpose capacity limits on businesses and religious facilities, it will suspend its late-night alcohol sales program on Friday at 5 p.m.

According to county officials, social gatherings play a large role in the transmission of the virus.

"We are seeing issues of people taking out alcohol from restaurants and taking them slightly off property to the public space," Stoddard said. "The consumption of the alcohol isn't the problem. It's the behavior that the alcohol consumption contributes to the problem.

"And that's what we're seeing on the enforcement side — we are having a lot of problems in our streeteries with people taking alcohol off premises and breaking all physical distancing and face covering requirements outside the space of the restaurant, which is not the restaurant's fault, per se. But we've got to curb that activity."

Stoddard said notices have already been sent to permit holders.

Taking a Regional Approach to Reinstating COVID-19 Restrictions

Montgomery County, which is in phase two of its pandemic recovery plan, has typically reopened at a slower rate than the rest of the state due to higher COVID-19 numbers. Gov. Larry Hogan has given all 24 jurisdictions in Maryland discretion in deciding when and how to reopen their respective economies.

At Thursday's meeting, Stoddard said the county was trying to foster support from neighboring jurisdictions to reimpose restrictions together. But the other counties haven't joined in.

"County Executive Elrich has been attempting to recruit other partners in this. There's just a lot of trepidation," Stoddard said. "I think it's understandable, but we got to the point where we've been holding back on this recommendation (for change) for a week, trying to recruit other people to jump off that proverbial ledge or move forward with us. We have not been able to get partnerships from this.

"At this point, we feel like us taking this leap of confidence in our public health leadership from (County Health Officer) Dr. (Travis) Gayles is the right thing for our residents," Stoddard added. "We just cannot continue to sit here while we try and foster support from other jurisdictions while our residents are becoming affected."

To date, nearby jurisdictions like Prince George's and Baltimore counties have not announced additional COVID-19 restrictions.

Both Montgomery and Prince George's counties have the highest number of deaths in the state (845), according to data released Friday. Montgomery has the second highest number of confirmed cases (26,996), after Prince George's County, which has 34,070.