New York opens the interior of bars and restaurants with a 25% capacity

Interior of a restaurant in New York, in November.KENA BETANCUR / AFP

Restaurants in New York City will be able to open at 25% of their capacity starting today, two days before the initially scheduled date, in an advance intended to manage all the reservations they await for the celebration of Valentine's Day.

One party for another: this Friday the Lunar New Year, or Chinese New Year, is celebrated, although the expectations of influx to the premises vary as much as the size of the same.

On the eve of the reopening, most of the dozen restaurants visited in different areas of the city were still weighing the convenience of resuming service inside, suspended by a New York State executive order on December 14 that only allowed drinking outdoors, and until ten at night.

“We have a very small dining room.

So far we have been able to put up with serving prepared food at home and, frankly, having one or two tables per shift is not going to bring us anything.

We will wait for them to give permission to open the entire premises;

if not, it doesn't compensate us, ”explained Thuy, manager of a Thai restaurant on the Upper West Side, behind a

of upturned tables and chairs from which she dispatches orders.

Most businessmen in the industry require a 50% reopening to cover costs and delay the curfew for two hours until midnight.

A score of city councilors seconded these demands last week in a letter to the governor of the state, Democrat Andrew Cuomo, arguing that 25% of the capacity will continue to jeopardize the viability of the businesses.

The prudent reopening of the premises is due to the decline in the numbers of positivity and infections as the rate of vaccination intensifies.

However, unlike the national average - with a drop of 36% in new cases and 22% in deaths, in the last 14 days - the risk remains "extremely high" in the Big Apple, hence the warning of Cuomo that the reopening of the indoor service "must scrupulously follow the regulations that we set", and can be reversed.

On February 8, the State had a positivity rate of 4.28%, almost half that of the city, with an average of 8% in the last two weeks.

That's why Maria Loi, the owner of a renowned Greek restaurant in Midtown that has been kept open thanks to the service on the terrace, feels that it should be reopened with caution.

“If the authorities had decided, for example, to reopen at 50% of the capacity, we would not have been willing ... at most we would have done it at 30%, and for at least three months, to see how the situation evolves.

We cannot run.

Because this is an issue that concerns us all as a society, not us as businessmen: what is the use of opening quickly, or wide open, if later people are going to get sick ", Loi explained on the eve of the reopening while managing reservations for the weekend.

"In the restaurant we have not had a single case of covid, in a team of fifteen workers.

It's about following the rules and not rushing ”.

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On February 8, more than two million doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered in New York State, and the immunization, still far from reaching the cruising speed that the Joe Biden Administration intends, explains that in the In the last two weeks the number of new cases has decreased: a clearly downward trend in the city, from the peak of January 19, with 73 cases per 100,000 inhabitants.

In a centennial cafe in Greenwich Village, a waitress who asks not to be identified acknowledges having overcome her reluctance ("I was afraid, because they say that in Norway several people died after being vaccinated," she says, despite the fact that the health authorities of that country ruled out any relationship) and says she is willing to get vaccinated, "because the owner of the cafe belongs to one of the risk groups and has already put it on, and wants all employees to be protected when it reopens the interior completely."

Their wishes collide with the harsh reality: it is not even known if there will be sufficient doses for the staff of these establishments, while the State delegates to the local administrations the consideration of waiters and cooks as risk personnel, and therefore a priority, to the time to get the vaccine.

“We are responding to variables that are beyond our control.

We simply react to the changes that are presented, ”Cuomo said on February 1, as quoted by the

.

The swing of restrictions to which restaurants in New York are subjected - after a total closure in the first wave of the pandemic, the service inside was resumed at the end of September, to be closed again less than three months later - it has given the finishing touch to many businesses that did not have terraces or capacity to serve at home. Premises that were part of the urban landscape still show the governor's executive order hanging at the entrance that in his day prompted them to close to stop the contagion. In January, Cuomo presented a proposal for loans to the sector for 50 million dollars, which has still been finalized, which would be added to a first recovery fund, participated by the State and private sponsors, of three million dollars for businesses especially hit. for the pandemic. Meanwhile, the restoration, which generates billions and more than 100,000 jobs in the city, holds the breath, so that a measure designed to remedy its plight does not end up becoming another black hole.