Anchorage on Monday will ease its COVID-19 restrictions under a new emergency order that will allow more people in bars and restaurants and reduce meeting size limits and organized sports.
Emergency Order 18 takes effect at 8 am on Monday, February 1, and will remain in effect until revoked, Anchorage’s incumbent mayor Austin Quinn-Davidson’s office announced on Thursday.
While it facilitates some of the deals that were more restricted under the previous two orders, the new order makes few changes to other businesses, such as retail, beauty salons and gyms.
Many local companies have had to adapt as changes in COVID-19 restrictions have dramatically altered their operations. The virus also prevented customers from shopping and dining and left many businesses in jeopardy. Restaurants, bars and breweries went through several closings for indoor meals, most recently for the month of December.
Anchorage eased some restrictions and opened indoor meals in January. The city has seen a slow but steady decline in coronavirus cases over the past month.
The new order aims to strike a balance, slowly reopening the city even more, while maintaining caution, Quinn-Davidson said on Thursday.
“This keeps critical public health measures in place while strategically easing restrictions in some of the most affected sectors that we have heard of,” she said.
Quinn-Davidson said the city has made “incredible progress” and attributed the decline in cases to community sacrifices.
“We are in a position where we have to navigate carefully,” said Quinn-Davidson. “For now we are moving in the right direction. And we need to keep it that way. “
Zeke Lomer, left, and Mike Knowles, in the center, sit at a table inside Uncle Joe’s Pizzeria after having lunch in downtown Anchorage on Thursday, January 28, 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
The most notable changes to Emergency Request 18 include:
• Starting on Monday, bars, restaurants and breweries can start operating at 50% capacity. The alcohol service time limit will also be loosened slightly – alcohol service can go on until midnight. The previous emergency order, which remains in effect until the weekend, required companies to stop serving alcoholic beverages at 11 pm.
• Sports teams will be able to compete indoors with other teams in the municipality. Previously, indoor competitions were banned.
• Bingo halls and theaters will also be able to expand to 50% of capacity under the new emergency order.
• Slightly larger meetings are now allowed. Internal meetings with food and drinks will be restricted to 10 people; without food and drinks, internal meetings are restricted to 15 people.
• Outdoor meetings with food and drinks will be restricted to 30 people; without refreshments, outdoor meetings are restricted to 50 people.
The city is still asking residents to maintain tours and physical contact with others within their own home.
A separate mask mandate remains in force in Anchorage, requiring people to wear a mask or cloth to cover their faces while in public indoor spaces, or while outdoors, if they cannot be socially distant.
Capacity limits for companies offering personal care services, such as beauty salons or tattoo parlors; gyms and fitness centers; and retail and other public-facing businesses will remain unchanged at 50% of capacity.
Since bars and restaurants were severely restricted by the previous two emergency orders, it was important to slow down as much as possible in this sector to protect it, said Quinn-Davidson.
The food and meal industry in Anchorage saw a loss of about 4,000 jobs, a third of the sector’s jobs, in 2020, according to a state labor report.
While capacity constraints are being further eased, some in the industry question the impact this will have on many businesses. The distance requirements between customers and tables also play a big role in how many people a restaurant or bar can serve.
“Fifty percent of the occupation with a 3-meter separation does not allow us to do anything more than we can do today,” said Chris Anderson, president of Glacier Brewhouse and ORSO in downtown Anchorage, on Thursday.
A woman walks to the car with a travel order from the Snow City Cafe in downtown Anchorage on Thursday, January 28, 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)
If more people could sit at a table, it could help, he said.
Still, Anderson said he understands that the city is in a difficult situation.
“I respect what they are doing and I think they are probably doing the right thing and, unfortunately, I am in a business that is being dramatically affected,” he said.
Municipal prosecutor Kate Vogel said the city is carrying out its emergency orders, which are laws.
For the most part, code enforcers have found widespread compliance, she said.
“This does not mean that there have been no incidents of rape and opportunities for education and corrective action,” she said. “They existed and that is why we need and have code application available.”
Although health indicators are improving, Quinn-Davidson said the city does not have a specific date set as a goal to further reopen its economy.
“This is not how this pandemic works,” she said. “… We could have several new variants appearing and spreading super quickly and needing a ratchet back.”
In an effort to provide more transparency to businesses, the city released documents on Thursday describing the health metrics it uses to decide what restrictions are in place, including daily COVID-19 case counts, health care capacity and rate of infection.
It also released a document outlining the restrictions that would be in effect at various stages, ranging from lower risk – when the 6-foot social spacing determines the restaurant’s capacity, for example – to very high risk, when restaurants must be fully closed for service internal.
Health officials announced this week that a new highly contagious coronavirus variant has been found in Alaska. Quinn-Davidson said that if the community is not careful, its progress can be reversed.
This could impact a new reopening across the city, as well as the reopening of schools in Anchorage, which started earlier this month starting with primary schools. Thousands more students are expected to return in February.
Dr. Janet Johnston, an epidemiologist in the health department, said that although the variant is very contagious, the same care works – social distance, wearing masks and hand washing.
“We need to be more vigilant about them, and for more vigilant, I mean, when we say that we need to be 2 meters away, we really need to be 2 meters away,” she said.
Quinn-Davidson said that by easing the restrictions on COVID-19, the city is leaving things more to individual decisions.
“If we keep doing the things that we know work, we hope to be able to continue to keep the virus under control, long enough for the vaccine to become widely available,” she said.
[Below: Watch the acting mayor’s announcement of the new emergency order.]