“It’s cut into their money, it’s cut into their livelihood. That’s their job.”
Critical tips for employees between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. are now gone, she said. The neighborhood bar usually would close at 2:30 a.m. on weekends, with last call at 2 a.m. Now, they do last call for alcohol service at 9:45 p.m., “and everything has to be pulled off the tables by 11, and people are gone,” she said.
Two Butler County bars were cited recently for violating the 10 p.m. curfew, the Grub Pub in Hamilton on Friday, and Madison Inn in Middletown on Aug. 31, when around 11:30 p.m., with about 50 people inside, agents for the state bought beer and liquor.
The Ohio Restaurant Association has formally asked Gov. Mike DeWine to push back Ohio’s current 10 p.m. curfew on alcohol sales to midnight, a move supported by many local bars.
In his letter to DeWine, Ohio Restaurant Association President and CEO John Barker said his association’s surveys show half of Ohio’s restaurant owners and operators “don’t expect their businesses to survive into 2021 if conditions stay the same.”
When agents arrived around 11:18 p.m. Friday at the Grub Pub, the timing was bad for them to show up, one of the bar’s co-owners said.
A Pink Floyd tribute-band show, Signs of Life at Hamilton’s RiversEdge amphitheater “had just let out, and we had been dead all night,” Patrick Canaan said. “And all of a sudden we get this big influx of people, and we lost track of time, and all of a sudden, it’s 11 o’clock and it’s like, 'Oh, heck, we’ve got to start getting people out of here.”
Agents were able to buy beer, leading to a citation of “Rule 80,” requiring that bars stop serving alcohol at 10 p.m.
The 180 citations that have been issued for such coronavirus violations since March are “a small percentage of the places that the Ohio Investigative Unit” visited, said Eric Wolf, that agency’s enforcement commander for northern Ohio. They represent about 1 percent of the 17,757 places statewide that have been checked.
“The vast majority of locations are doing what they’re supposed to. They’re providing that safe environment for patrons to return, both to make the patrons feel safe, as well as to allow to remain open and combat the spread of the coronavirus.”
One bar near Akron lost its license for such a violation, Wolf said. Other penalties can include fines or forced closures for a number of days.
“They’re closing us down at 10 every night to stop the spread of corona,” said Canaan, whose family has owned the Grub Pub since 1981. “Well, and then the governor says every day on his little update, ‘wear your mask, wear your mask.’ His own task shows up at my bar, one of 'em with his mask halfway up, and none of the other three had any mask on.”
Hamilton police all wear their masks and always is cordial, but, “the governor’s task force was not cordial, did not have masks on, except for the supervisor. His was halfway up. And was not very nice at all. Tellin' me I need to follow the rules, this and that about the rules. And I’m looking at him, thinkin', ‘Well, you’re not following them yourself.’”
Canaan said the bar had not hired a lawyer. “Now, I do have some calling, volunteering things, and we’ll go from there on what to do.”
“Agents typically should be wearing masks unless there’s a reason for them not to,” Wolf said. “We certainly require masks at all our facilities and while our agents our out in the public. Especially when taking enforcement action, they should be wearing masks.”
