RI Bars Could Soon Face Further Restrictions For Risky Behavior

PROVIDENCE, RI — Traditional Rhode Island bars were told to operate "like restaurants" when they were allowed to reopen with wait staff table service and social distancing enforcement as part of phase 3 of the state's reopening process.

Gov. Gina Raimondo said during her Wednesday news conference that the trusty neighborhood taverns will have one last chance this week and weekend to prove they can collectively adhere to that standard, or she will call for further restrictions on the embattled industry next week.

With the type of interaction that takes place in barrooms — prolonged conversations and mingling among people from different households, largely not wearing masks — cited as a prime source of coronavirus spike in several states in recent weeks, some of those states have chosen to once again shutter the local watering hole.

Raimondo said there will be consequences in RI as well if inspectors don't see a decrease in guideline violations this week and this weekend.

"Unfortunately we are not seeing what we need to be seeing in terms of compliance from bars," she said. "So I am now looking at different options for how we can change the regulations for how bars operate. We're going to do a big round of inspections this week, and this weekend, and if we don't see better compliance then I will be back next week with more stringent rules, and a further shutdown of bars.

"Which, by the way, I really don't want to do."

She said she has been trying to work with restaurant and bar owners, and recognizes that many of them are struggling at 60 to 65 percent of their normal take due to the current guidelines.

"The last thing I want to say to them is that we're cutting back their business," she said. "But I will say that will be necessary by this point next week if we don't see better compliance."

She reiterated that bars cannot operate like bars, but only as restaurants. Bartenders can make drinks to be brought to tables by waiters, without people sitting at a bar.

"You cannot sit at a bar with a bartender where you order a drink and sit there," she said. "If you're going into a restaurant, and that's happening, that's not allowed. If we come into your restaurant, and that's happening, we will close your restaurant. It's not allowed."

Bars are allowed to have socially distant seating at a bar to serve food, as long as there is no bartender there. Or bar seating is allowed if there is a plexiglass divider that prevents bartenders from sliding drinks to patrons — they must be brought to the other side of the bar by a server.

"But, right now, in Rhode Island, you cannot operate a bar like a normal bar — what we would think of as a bar," she said. "Think of it as a restaurant."

She said to view the situation simply: "If you find yourself at a restaurant, in a crowd, standing at a bar, in a crowd, you're doing something wrong. And I would ask you please to either leave, or go find a seat, or make a different plan."

Raimondo said contact tracing has also linked small outbreaks to backyard parties that exceeded the state's 25-person limit, people crowding onto boats and people crowding into restaurants, and that those types of transgressions have large implications on how the state keeps its case numbers down, and keeps businesses and schools open.

"You need to know that if you're out, and you're at a rented beach house where there is a party you're breaking the law," she said, "you're risking people's lives, you're making it harder for kids to go back to school and your contributing to our 12.5 percent unemployment rate.

"We all belong to each other. It's not just about you. I am asking you to try harder and that you must obey the rules."

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