Vermont’s bar owners are wondering when they’ll be able to reopen, after almost four months of forced closure.
“It’s kind of funny that New Hampshire and New York have their American Legions and VFWs and Elks Clubs open, and Phil Scott won’t let us do the same,” said Roy Eckler, finance officer at the American Legion in Fair Haven. “We’re losing money just as fast as all those other people were.”
Bars are currently prohibited from opening in just seven other states, while the majority of the country has reopened its watering holes in at least some capacity.
This week, Texas and Mississippi announced full reopenings of every kind of business — without so much as a mask mandate. Though most public officials have strongly urged against such measures, it’s prompting a few Vermont bar owners to ask when they could expect even the beginnings of a reopening themselves, as they remain the only sector still closed in Vermont.
However, there’s no indication from the governor that bar openings are right around the corner — though a few Covid restrictions have begun to ease, such as quarantine and gathering rules for those who have received the vaccine.
“As more Vermonters are vaccinated, especially the most vulnerable, we expect to continue methodically lifting certain restrictions, as we have with travel and some gatherings so far,” Scott spokesperson Jason Maulucci wrote in an email.
Eckler said he’s especially frustrated because of all the work put in over the summer installing plexiglass and getting the Legion club ready to reopen in a limited-capacity, physically-distanced way, only to be shut down again just a few weeks later. Between all the extra expenses and lost revenues, he said his club’s finances plunged in 2020.
“We’ve been targeted,” he said. “Restaurants that have bars are making money, but places like us and regular bars can’t open. And our liquor license is coming up pretty soon. We’ve got to be able to pay for that.”
Terry Suskin, owner of Finnigan’s Pub in Burlington, said the ongoing closure has been tough — so much so that he got another job in the interim to fill the time. The safety of his staff comes first, he said, and he’s learned to make do.
“At the second shutdown, I was pretty annoyed because we’d fought hard to get things back going in August,” he said, echoing Eckler. “But I kind of knew it was going to happen at some point. I’ve kind of come to terms with the whole thing; I’m just riding it out at this point.”
He speculated his view is an outlier.
“I gave up on being angry, I guess,” Suskin said. “And as more people are vaccinated, it’ll become safer, and ultimately I think it’ll just come down to when my staff feels safe. I’m not going to open until they’re fully ready to go.”
Scott ordered bars to close on Nov. 13, amid the post-Halloween virus surge. Maulucci said Scott, along with experts at the Department of Health, identified bars as “contributors to clusters and outbreaks,” along with multi-household gatherings.
“As we’ve seen throughout the country, masking and physical distancing can break down at these locations where ‘gathering’ is more commonplace than at restaurants,” he wrote.
Other business sectors that were originally identified as dangerous for spreading the virus, such as gyms and indoor restaurants, Maulucci said, can more easily maintain physical distancing and other mitigation measures, and as such, haven’t been identified as drivers of spread in Vermont in the same way as bars.
Nate Formalarie, spokesperson for the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, said there are no benchmarks or metrics for vaccinations or case rates tied to a specific sector reopening.
“The changes that have been made to gathering guidance over the last week are a great step in the right direction toward allowing further reopening of sectors like bars and restaurants,” he said.
Maulucci said the governor plans to continue his “methodical and strategic” approach to reopening, and that goes for bars as much as anything else.
“It will not be a flip of the switch,” Maulucci wrote. “But again, given that by March 15, all Vermonters 65 and older, as well as those over 16 with underlying health conditions, will be eligible, on top of increased vaccine supply. It will not be long before things will begin to feel normal again.”
