Sensible Openings

From WMUR:

“New Hampshire restaurants opening with outdoor seating only”

For the first time since March, restaurants can host dinners for on-site, sit-down service in New Hampshire with restrictions. Per state guidelines, restaurants could reopen Monday while restricted to outdoor seating only, with tables 6 feet apart and staff required to wear personal protective equipment. The Tuscan Kitchen in Salem pulled off an elaborate structure in their parking lot, complete with a wood-fired pizza oven. “Obviously it’s a challenging thing to put this back together no matter what side of the operation you’re on,” the owner of Tuscan Kitchen Joe Faro said. “You know, you play the cards that you’re dealt, so we’re going to play those cards.” In the Upper Valley, Lou’s in Hanover is open for business, but needed help from the town to create more outdoor space. “Immediately the town reached out to me and was looking to work with me in figuring out ways to make it happen,” said Jarett Berke the owner of Lou’s. For many of these restaurants opening this way comes at a cost. “We are losing money just doing curbside and takeout, this will certainly help, but it’s not going to be a situation where we’ll start being profitable again,” CEO of Great NH Restaurants Tom Boucher said. Many restaurants in the state are choosing not to open, either or those financial reasons or they simply cannot accommodate outdoor seating. 

^ How is it only allowed to open restaurants for outside seating when you can have tents with roofs and sides on them and not be able to sit inside a building - especially if you require masks, being 6 feet apart, limit the number of customers and other restrictions? Many of these “outdoor” seating areas are more elaborate than what you would find in many indoor seating areas  - some even have outdoor heaters.  Sometimes you need to use some common sense. If you can sit completely covered "outside" than you can sit completely covered inside.  This just shows the lack of common sense being used across the United States (and the world) and of course people are being lemmings and accepting everything without question. I’m not talking about those weirdos who carry guns, Confederate flags and Swastikas and “invade” State Houses, but ordinary, regular people who wear face masks, who stand 6 feet apart and who non-violently protest or question how the Local, State and Federal Governments have handled things so far, how they are currently  handling things and make them show us – the American people – what steps they plan to take in the future. Everything needs to be accounted for that includes: why some Local, State and Federal Government officials did not use or do not use ASL interpreters why giving Covid-19 or other official updates; why the elderly, the disabled, the sick have been allowed to be abandoned in nursing homes, group homes and other locations to fend for themselves or die alone; why online Unemployment Services have collapsed; why there was/is a shortage of PPE across the country; why Social Distancing arrests and fines are not treated equally even within the same town or city with special emphasis placed on certain police officers (not wearing masks themselves) abusing their power and being caught on video; why some things were not done sooner to contain Covid-19 especially as it spread from Asia to Europe; why the response was limited during the pandemic across the different levels around the US; why the farm to table food system nearly collapsed with many people going without food while growers had to destroy what they did have, etc. The list is long, but that’s a start. It is our job as a people to question our elected officials at every level and hold them accountable for both what they have done right and what they have done wrong. Pandemic or no pandemic. And we should not wait until everything is over with because we have no idea when that will be or if there will be a second wave, etc. ^

https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-restaurants-opening-with-outdoor-seating-only/32589156