On Jan. 22, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that restaurants and bars in the state can reopen for indoor dining on Feb. 1, as long as seating is limited to 25% capacity or 100 people, whichever is smaller. They must also close by 10 p.m.
“When I saw the announcement I thought, ‘Well, it’s about time,’” Cottage Inn Pizza owner Donna Olmstead said.
Since Nov. 18, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has prohibited restaurants from offering in-person dining, permitting only outdoor seating, takeout, and delivery services.
“I know this pandemic has hurt restaurant owners or restaurant workers, and all of their families. I want to thank those that made incredible sacrifices and did their part, on behalf of our protecting our communities from COVID,” Whitmer said.
Olmstead said the 25% capacity rule makes it almost pointless for small restaurants to open.
“I don’t know how much it’s going to help a lot of restaurants,” Olmstead said. “If you can only fit 100 people, you can now only have 25 people. Twenty-five percent is not a lot. Are you going to open for seven or eight people?”
Hillsdale Mayor Adam Stockford said he knows of several restaurants that would not be able to open at only 25% capacity and earn what they need to stay in business.
“I know several who still won’t be opening at 25% capacity because it would mean they’d lose money,” Stockford said in an email. “I’m ashamed of the state government, the governor’s office, and just as much the state legislature, who have hung a single industry out to dry. It is unconscionable.”
Olmstead said the Cottage Inn dining room is more spacious than other restaurants in the county. However, the owner of the Finish Line Family Restaurant, Lisa Slade, said she was very disappointed by the capacity limit.
“We have 22 tables. So for us to be at a quarter of capacity that’s six tables, which isn’t really even worth doing,” Slade said.
Slade said she will still open indoor dining on the first of the month, though she said she’s not sure what that will look like when the time comes.
They will be enforcing a mask policy, she said.
Whitmer also announced other continuing restrictions, such as obtaining contact information for every person who eats indoors. Restaurant owners found this order difficult to comply with when it was in place several months ago.
“The contact tracing before didn’t work real well for us just because people generally don’t want to do it,” Slade said. “They either give you a fight on it or they just give you a name that is bogus anyway.”
The government’s response to COVID-19 restrictions in restaurants has been “totally unfair,” Olmstead said, particularly when they were forced to cease in-person dining.
“There were so many times when I was out and about going to different grocery stores. The capacity there far exceeded what was called for. Nobody ever got shut down,” Olmstead said. “There were a lot of people that were unnecessarily hurt. If you could have kept us at 50 or 25 percent capacity, a lot more businesses could have been salvaged.”
According to an affidavit released on Nov. 17, 2020, on behalf of the Michigan Restaurant and Lodging Association by its CEO, Justin Winslow, 2,000 restaurants in the state have permanently closed due to government restrictions.
“She has totally picked on the restaurants,” Slade said. “I think she has really overstretched her bounds in telling businesses that they just can’t be open. Customers should have the choice in their life of what they do. Their choices should not be dictated by the government.”
This latest order reflects a growing trend that Whitmer is disconnected from the people, according to Stockford.
“The targeting of restaurants is unfair and arbitrary. It makes no sense even using a “safety” metric and there has been no compelling evidence that eating out instigates the spread of COVID-19,” Stockford said. “As a man who comes from a family of small business owners, many of them restaurants, it’s clear the governor’s lack of real-world experience has been a liability to the working class Michiganders she claims to represent.”
Stockford went on to describe the complicated balance struck in a small town like Hillsdale and how that has been shattered by changing orders and “lawyerly tricks.”
“What seems to be unbeknownst to the governor and the legislature is that small businesses in communities like Hillsdale are so co-dependent and intertwined that targeting one industry has a domino effect on all industries,” he said. “People go out to eat, they use gas to get there, they stop in and grab groceries or do recreational shopping while they’re out, and so on. Small communities like Hillsdale maintain a delicate balance.”
Slade said the state’s restaurant policies have been devastating for her business.
“Doing takeout only, we’re still operating at a monthly loss every single month,” Slade said. “We do the best we can, but we are very anxious to be back open.”