Scott Nishimura
The natives continue to get restless. Tuesday, a bar in the Fort Worth Stockyards, The Basement Bar, declared it would be open for normal hours starting May 1, the day after the city’s current COVID-19 declaration requiring all but essential businesses close to the public expires.
“We have played the game,” the bar wrote in a Facebook post. By Wednesday, it had edited the post to merely say it would be open for normal operation May 1 and to thank “supporters and the haters” who weighed in on its original post. “May 1st, all bars will be open,” the bar wrote. “We just happened to advertise it first, and between the supporters and the haters, it was the best PR move we ever made. Thank you for almost 300k views and comments!”
Not so fast. True, the city’s current declaration expires April 30. But it’s likely the city will extend that, but begin a phased-in approach to easing the current restrictions, Elmer DePaula, the city’s code compliance assistant director for consumer health, said Wednesday in an interview. “Those conversations are already taking place,” DePaula said.
The new declaration will likely extend the current one, but provide “some less restrictive rules for certain things,” he said. “By the end of this month, you should see we will have something in place to extend” the current declaration.
The city’s current declaration, which can be viewed here, requires:
· Individuals stay at home, except to leave their residences for essential travel, essential activities, or to provide essential government functions, or run essential businesses. Allowed travel includes traveling to work at or for an essential business, traveling for the health of yourself or another person, leaving to get food and supplies, and going outside to get exercise.
· Essential businesses such as grocery stores, pharmacies, and other establishments that sell household goods are allowed to remain open, but must enforce social distancing.
· In-house dining at restaurants is prohibited. Restaurants with or without drive-through services, drive-ins and drive-throughs, liquor stores, microbreweries, micro-distilleries, and wineries may only provide takeout, delivery, or drive-in and drive-through services.
· All businesses within the city must close to the public, except essential businesses.
· Businesses closed to the public can continue to operate, as long as they maintain social distancing of six feet from all employees and contractors.
· All public or private gatherings of any number of people occurring outside a single household or living unit are prohibited.
· Elective medical procedures are prohibited, with limited exceptions.
· If someone in a household has tested positive for COVID-19, the household is required to isolate at home.
· Nursing homes, retirement, and long-term care facilities are to prohibit nonessential visitors from access, except to “provide critical assistance or for end-of-life visitation.”
· Worship services can be offered only online or through drive-in services where attendees stay in their vehicles and are six feet apart.
