Judi Yaeger, owner of The Junction Tavern in Williston, says the state’s second closure of her business could be the last. She said the business may not survive. File Photo by Terry Witt:
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Bars, taverns, pubs, and nightclubs statewide were closed Friday by a state executive order citing the rising number of positive COVID-19 cases in Florida.
Halsey Beshears, secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation said the order shuts down businesses that sell alcohol on-premises, not restaurants that serve alcohol and food.
Beshears said his decision resulted from bars, taverns, pubs, and nightclubs statewide violating Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Phase 2 reopening plan allowing on-premise sale of alcohol after a 2 ½ month shutdown.
“Noncompliance by bars and other vendors licensed to sell alcoholic beverages for consumption on the premises is suspected throughout the state to such a degree as to make individualized enforcement efforts impractical and insufficient at this time,” the executive order said.
Judi Yaeger, owner of The Junction Tavern in Williston, said the first closure of the bar cost her thousands of dollars but she said the second shutdown could close the business permanently.
Yaeger said she practiced social distancing in her business after the reopening 21 days ago. She was given a thumbs-up by the Florida Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) after an agent inspected her tavern two days ago.
She said the agent looked at the buckets of bleach water, her license and the reduction in the number of bar stools to keep customers socially distanced and left.
“He gave us a thumbs-up and shook everybody’s hand and said have a good day,” she said.“
Yaeger learned of the latest executive order closing her business on Friday.
“I don’t know if I can survive a second round of this. I don’t understand why they are pulling us into the large conglomerate of cities. We’re a small rural county, we have low numbers, but they are not considering that. I mean, I could literally go out of business this time,” Yaeger said.
Levy County Commission Chairman Matt Brooks said he took many phone calls Friday from worried business owners. He said he had no forewarning the order was coming.
“Some of these people haven’t got even close to any kind of recovery and now the knee jerk reaction,” Brooks said. “I watched the governor’s press conference and he said as much too. There’s more testing so of course with more testing you’re going to have more positive cases. We’re still not seeing that in our county. We’re still sitting around 28 active cases. We haven’t seen a wide community spread.”
Brooks said he doesn’t agree with the broad brush strokes of the DBPR in closing every bar, tavern and nightclub in the state.
“It could really put a small business owner in a bad spot because they’re either going to file for bankruptcy and be closed down or they’re going to take a risk staying open and DBPR is going to come in and shut them down and take their license. It’s a loss for them.”
Brooks said another point of contention for the county commission is the state making these decisions without consulting at the local level and giving no consideration to small counties.
Brooks was asked to comment on the state’s concerns about the lack of social distancing in business establishments that serve alcohol on-premises.
“These people need to look at these protests because those people are violating social distancing measures as well. How far are they going to go? People have a right to protest. Someone jokingly said today, I think we should all get together and go to the bar and protest – freedom of speech and the right to assemble. I wouldn’t be surprised if people started going that,” Brooks said.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt June 26, 2020; Posted June 26, 2020
