Restaurant Owners in several York Country restaurants gathered in The Paddock in Springettsbury Township on Wednesday to encourage state officials to allow restaurants to offer dine-in services again with the health safety protocols and social distancing at priority. They were joined with State Representative Mike Jones, R-York.
Although some counties in the state are slowly getting into the Yellow phase of reopening, restaurant owners are still not allowed to have dine-in services in their establishments. A lot of restaurant owners in the state are feeling the massive drop in sales due to this huge restriction.
One of the co-owners of The Paddock, Jon Spanos, stated that if these restrictions continue, around 17 restaurants in the area will not reopen and about 287 employees will lose their jobs. “We believe that we crossed the tipping point a few weeks ago, and our response to this virus is now literally destroying more lives than it is saving,” he said. “We need to reopen quickly, but we need to reopen safely.”
Round the Clock Diner made it to the local news recently for allowing dine-in services in their restaurant when in fact, it is a massive violation of Governor Wolf’s orders. The state Department of Agriculture spokesperson stated that they had issued warning letters to the restaurant for ignoring Gov. Tom Wolf’s shutdown order. The restaurant officially reopened (both its Manchester Township and Springettsbury Township branches) its dine-in services last week, which got the general public into mixed opinions.
Under the department’s new COVID-19 enforcement guidelines, establishments that do not follow or defy state orders would possibly face penalties up to $10,000 per day.
Round the Clock Diner’s spokesperson, Demos Sacarellos said on Thursday that “We have some people coming from two hours away, just to come and support the restaurant. People are ready to go back.”
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Pennsylvania has implemented several restrictions for the general safety of the public. One of these is not allowing dine-in services in restaurants and only offer either take-away or delivery services.
Tom Wolf said that there would be “consequences” for those counties who will disobey and violate his stay-at-home orders and reopening plans. This statement was announced on his official Twitter account, just after Donald Trump took to Twitter to push him to “move quickly” on lifting restrictions in the state.
