Anchorage will relax its COVID-19 restrictions on Monday under a new emergency order that will allow more people into pubs and restaurants and ease restrictions on meetings and organized sports.
Emergency Order 18 takes effect Monday, Feb. 1, at 8 p.m., and will remain in place until revoked, the office of Acting Mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson announced Thursday.
While some of the businesses most restricted under the two previous orders are facilitated, the new order makes few changes for other businesses such as retail, salons and gyms.
Many local businesses had to adapt because changing COVID-19 restrictions drastically changed their operations. The virus has also deterred customers from shopping and eating out and hurt many businesses. Restaurants, bars and breweries have been closed by several indoor eateries, most recently for December.
Anchorage eased some restrictions and opened indoor meals within January. The city has seen a slow but steady decline in coronavirus cases over the past month.
The new order aims to find a balance and slowly reopen the city while remaining cautious, Quinn-Davidson said Thursday.
“It implements critical public health measures, while strategically easing restrictions on some of the sectors that have affected us the most,” she said.
Quinn-Davidson said the city has made ‘incredible progress’ and attributed the decline in business to the sacrifice of the community.
“We’re in a position to navigate carefully,” Quinn-Davidson said. “For now, we are in the right direction. And we have to keep it that way. ”
Zeke Lomer, left, and Mike Knowles, center, are sitting at a table inside Uncle Joe’s Pizzeria after having lunch in downtown Anchorage on Thursday, January 28, 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
The most important changes under Emergency Order 18 include:
• From Monday, pubs, restaurants and breweries can start with a capacity of 50%. The time limit on alcohol service will also be relaxed a bit – alcohol service can last until midnight. In the previous emergency order, which remains in force this weekend, businesses had to stop serving alcohol at 23:00
• Sports teams can compete indoors with other teams from within the municipality. Previously, indoor competition was banned.
• According to the new emergency order, bingo halls and theaters will also be able to expand to 50%.
• There are now a few larger gatherings. Indoor gatherings with food and drink are limited to ten people; without food and drink, indoor gatherings are limited to 15 people.
• Meetings with food and drink outside are limited to 30 people; without refreshments, outdoor gatherings are limited to 50 people.
The city is still asking residents to keep outings and physical contact with others with people within their own household.
A separate mask mandate remains in force in Anchorage, requiring people to wear a mask or cloth cover while indoors or outdoors if they cannot stay socially distant.
Capacity constraints for businesses that offer personal care services such as salons or tattoo parlors; gyms and fitness centers; and retail and other public enterprises will remain unchanged with a capacity of 50%.
Because pubs and restaurants were severely restricted by the two previous emergency orders, it was important to facilitate the sector as far as possible to protect it, Quinn-Davidson said.
The food and eating industry in Anchorage saw a loss of about 4,000 jobs in 2020, a third of the sector’s employment, according to a government report.
While capacity constraints are further facilitated, some in the industry question how much impact they will have on many businesses. Distance requirements between customers and tables also play a big role in how many people can serve a restaurant or bar.
“Fifty percent of the crew with a ten-foot separation does not allow us more than we can currently do,” Chris Anderson, president of Glacier Brewhouse and ORSO in downtown Anchorage, said Thursday.
A woman walks into a car from Snow City Cafe in downtown Anchorage on Thursday, January 28, 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
If more people can sit at one table, it can help, he said.
Still, Anderson said he understands the city is in a difficult state.
“I respect what they do and I think they’m probably doing the right thing, and I’m unhappy in a business that is being dramatically affected,” he said.
City attorney Kate Vogel said the city is enforcing its emergency orders, which are laws.
For the most part, code enforcers have widely found it to be compliant, she said.
“That does not mean that there were no incidents of violation and opportunities for education and affirmative action,” she said. “It existed and that’s part of why we need and have code enforcement.”
Although health statistics are improving, Quinn-Davidson said the city does not have a specific date to further reopen the economy.
“That’s just not the way this pandemic works,” she said. “… We can launch and distribute several new variants that are very fast and need to rattle back.”
In an effort to provide more transparency to businesses, the city on Thursday released documents outlining health statistics to decide what restrictions apply, including the daily COVID-19 number of cases, healthcare capacity and the infection rate.
It also released a document setting out the limitations that would apply in different phases, ranging from lower risk – if social foot of 6 feet determines restaurant capacity for example – to a very high risk, when restaurants have to be completely shut down for indoor service.
Health officials announced this week that a new, highly contagious variant of the coronavirus has been found in Alaska. Quinn-Davidson said if the community is not careful, its progress could be reversed.
This could affect the further reopening of the city, as well as the reopening of Anchorage schools, which began primary schools earlier this month. Thousands more students will return in February.
Dr. Janet Johnston, an epidemiologist at the health department, said that although the variant is highly contagious, the same precautions work – taking social distances, wearing masks and washing hands.
“We have to be extra vigilant about them, and if I’m extra vigilant, I mean when we say we have to be 6 feet apart, we really have to be 6 feet apart,” she said.
Quinn-Davidson said by limiting COVID-19 restrictions, the city leaves things more to individual decisions.
“If we continue to do the things we know we are working on, we are hopeful that we can continue to keep the virus in check long enough so that the vaccine can be widely available,” she said.
[Below: Watch the acting mayor’s announcement of the new emergency order.]