North Carolina to start alcohol sales curfew in effort to slow spread of COVID-19
A late-night alcohol sales ban in North Carolina will start Friday as a way to slow the spread of the coronavirus among young people, who now make up the majority of the state’s cases, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said.
The ban will begin Friday and will be in effect from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., according to Cooper’s executive order announced Tuesday. The order comes as the state’s lead health official said the state is showing some positive signs of controlling the spread of COVID-19.
“Slowing the spread of this virus requires targeted strategies that help lower the risk of transmission,” Cooper said. “This will be particularly important as colleges and universities are scheduled to start, bringing people all over the country to our state. We have seen case numbers increase among younger people, and prevention is critical to slowing the spread of the virus.”
Cooper’s executive order on alcohol sales applies to restaurants, breweries, distilleries and other businesses that sell alcoholic drinks for onsite consumption. The order is in effect through Aug. 31. Bars will continue to remain closed, as they have since mid-March.
Raleigh, Charlotte, Orange County, Mecklenburg County and some towns in Mecklenburg already have instituted bans on late-night alcohol sales. Raleigh’s restriction includes grocery stores, while Cooper’s order does not. Cooper’s order sets out minimum requirements. Local governments cannot set more permissive policies.
While the state’s key coronavirus indicators are beginning to stabilize, people should not slow down their efforts to lower transmission, said Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services. That includes the percent of visits to the emergency room for COVID-like illness, which Cohen said is leveling, and the trajectory of percentage of tests that are positive, which is declining.
“Seeing glimmers of potential progress does not mean we can let up — it means it’s time to double down,” Cohen said.
Slowing spread of COVID-19 in young people
Cohen said most of North Carolina’s cases of viral spread are in people in the 18- to 40-year-old age range. Data from NCDHHS shows 58% of the state’s more than 116,000 cases are among people 18 to 49.
Cooper said the curfew would discourage the “bar-type scene in a restaurant” that has attracted young people in some parts of the state — where restaurants evolve into bars as the night goes on. The 11 p.m. time was chosen to make sure the restaurant part of the evening is over, Cooper said.
“What we want to do, now that we have become stable with our numbers, we want to drive those numbers down,” Cooper said.
Cooper said the ALE and the Alcohol Beverage Control Commission will enforce the order. Violations are a Class 2 misdemeanor.
Lynn Minges, director of the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association, said the group is largely supportive of the order, preferring an early last call to a spike in cases that would shut down restaurants again.
“We knew this was likely coming,” Minges said. “This allows restaurants to continue operating. We don’t want to see a reduction in capacity or service like we’re seeing in other states.”
When North Carolina started lifting restrictions on restaurants that allowed them to partially reopen, but left bars closed, some restaurants began to act like bars. They drew large late-night crowds ordering more drinks than food. Minges said that can’t happen.
“We obviously wish we weren’t dealing with this situation,” Minges said. “We’ve been very clear since the beginning, that restaurants can operate safely. We have plenty of restaurants strictly adhering to the guidelines, practicing social distancing, being good actors. Then you have folks and situations where things have not been that way, causing the situation we’re in now.”
But Zack Medford, the Raleigh-based leader of the North Carolina Bar & Tavern Association, asked the state to reopen bars and require them to comply with the new order. The association unsuccessfully sued Cooper to reopen bars.
“If the COVID-19 outbreak can be curbed by limiting hours of alcohol service, then why not give all bars the chance to conform to the same standards?” Medford said in a release. “Why single out 1,063 private bars, while allowing thousands of other bars remain open for service when the only difference between the two is food sales?”
North Carolina coronavirus trends
Cohen credited the mask mandate that went into effect earlier this summer for contributing to the stabilization of coronavirus factors.
“Our actions to slow the spread of this virus are having an impact,” Cohen said. Two to three weeks after the mask requirement went into effect, “we started to see more stable trends,” she said.
Cooper said the state’s statistics are still too high. He said while other states have had to “go backwards,” North Carolina avoided that because restrictions were eased “carefully, in modest phases.”
“We do not want to go backward. Stable is good. Decreasing is better,” he said.
The governor’s three-phase reopening plan and lifting of restrictions has changed as cases continue to rise. Phase Two is set to expire on Aug. 7, which was extended three weeks from an original end date of July 17.
Outdoor gatherings in Phase Two are limited to 25 people, and 10 people indoors. Some businesses remain closed, including bars and amusement parks. The Republican-led General Assembly passed several reopening bills that would have lifted restrictions faster than Cooper’s plans. Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed them all earlier this summer.
North Carolina hospitals have treated, as in-patients, more than 1,000 people with COVID-19 daily since July 5. Tuesday saw another record for COVID-19 hospitalizations, at 1,244. DHHS reported 1,820 COVID-19 deaths in the state since the pandemic started.
More than 1.6 million people have been tested, with more than 116,000 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state. More than 92,000 of those coronavirus cases are presumed recovered.
Confirmed coronavirus cases increased 7.2% from July 14-28, compared to the first two weeks in July.
Trump, Pence visits in NC
Statewide, public schools are set to reopen on Aug. 17, but with most in remote learning. On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence is expected to visit Thales Academy, a private school in Apex, which has reopened with in-person learning. Pence is also set to visit a biotechnology company.
President Donald Trump was in the Triangle on Monday to visit a company working on a vaccine in Research Triangle Park in Morrisville.
Earlier this summer, Trump pulled out of the Republican National Convention that was scheduled to be in Charlotte in August because of crowd-size limitations in the state. After moving the RNC to Jacksonville, Florida instead, Trump then canceled that as coronavirus spikes in Florida. On Monday, the president talked about the possibility of accepting the Republican Party’s nomination in North Carolina after all.
Cooper told reporters Tuesday that he has not heard anything from the Trump administration or the RNC about the convention adding events in Charlotte. He said they are “welcome to come but nothing has changed about our resolve to keep health and safety first.”
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 4:17 PM with the headline "North Carolina to start alcohol sales curfew in effort to slow spread of COVID-19."
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