Puerto Rico shuts down night business amid Covid spike
The explosion of Covid-19 cases in Puerto Rico has led the island’s government, starting Tuesday and lasting through Jan. 18, to shut down nighttime business activities and impose a dry law, among other restrictions.
The new Executive Order 2021-086 signed by Gov. Pedro Pierluisi has been roundly criticized by local businessmen, bans alcohol sales, and shuts down businesses catering to the public from midnight to 5 am.
The bans, the latest attempt to contain the record number of new Covid-19 cases in the US commonwealth, most of them from the highly contagious Omicron variant, have sparked anger among the owners and managers of small businesses selling food and drink, the working hours of many of which had extended past midnight.
Ivan Villahermosa, the administrator for Casa Cataño and AquiCBB, two local businesses, criticized the new executive order for singling out restaurants and bars as the presumed spots where people are being infected.
“I agree with everything that’s for the good of the people. What’s happening is that we’re always breaking up and penalizing restaurants and bars,” he said in an interview with EFE on the seaside avenue in Cataño, a municipality next to San Juan.
He said that Casa Cataño would not be affected by the new order, but AquiCBB will be, where the average closing time is 2 am. Thus, that establishment will have to curtail its operations by two hours, resulting in thousands of dollars in lost potential revenue.
The new order also prohibits all gatherings of more than 250 people, whether at inside or outside venues, but it does not mention shopping centres or big markets to which thousands of shoppers flock at the same time each day.
“So, (they) won’t be hit, but (we) will be? That’s why many of us are bothered. We have to be fair with each other,” Villahermosa said.
Given that situation, the businessman proposed that the mayors of Puerto Rico’s 78 municipalities issue their orders and restrictions to halt the spread of Covid on the island, where on Tuesday, the positive testing rate reached 33.18 per cent.
According to figures from the local Health Department, over the past 24 hours, more than 8,700 new Covid cases were detected, including cases confirmed with molecular and antigen tests, and four people have died from the virus.
Meanwhile, Jose Lomba, one of the three owners of an event organizing firm called Pinchoneo in Guaynabo, another municipality near San Juan, told EFE that “the government always does things that affect the small businesses and leaves the big ones alone.”
“I don’t believe in closing down, but I do (belief in) taking care of oneself and getting vaccinated. If in the morning, you think that Covid has hit you, then everyone goes home at that time,” said the businessman and event promoter.
Lomba said that Pinchoneo has no specific closing time since, on certain occasions, it keeps operating until 4 am to manage a public event. Still, the new order will force it to shut down and inform its customers that they have to leave.
“Now, at 11 pm, I have to kick people out, and at 12, you have to clean up everything because if not, Finance and Health come and verify that there’s no longer any food at the business, or they find you,” he said.
He said that the business would lose about 20 per cent of its potential income due to the new order.
The order is not the only one to enter into force over the past week after capacity restrictions were imposed in local nightspots and negative Covid tests or evidence of vaccination was required of anyone wanting to attend public events.
The governor has also approved a series of measures, including obligatory anti-Covid booster shots for all healthcare personnel, teachers, police officers, restaurant and supermarket workers.
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