Governor DeSantis has banned the consumption of alcohol in all bars in the state of Florida with alcohol sales of over 50% of sales. This will have almost no effect in Fort Lauderdale, where most drinking occurs in big restaurants
Curiously, Sangrias and Rock Bar were open on Sunday serving up libations to area cretins; it seems impossible to me that they do more than 50% in food sales; in which case they would not allowed to be open.
Meanwhile, the Elbow room (and Spazio) were closed.
Again, the small guy is crushed by government. If you have a 150 seat restaurant, no problem. Carry on. Keep drinking in Bossi's, Big City, YOLO and Lobster Bar. If you happen to own a 50 seat cafe and had to pay $150K for a liquor license; you're out of business for now, because the governor thinks that young people will stop socializing if they can't drink in a bar that doesn't sell enough food to qualify as a restaurant.
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The first weekend with restaurants re-open is upon us; on Friday I didn't get myself motivated to go out. Who is going to be out? Are the bar areas open? Will people be wearing Masks? Will there be any socializing?
I was out at 5pm so I took a drive down Las Olas during happy hour.
The Pig and Timpano are Closed. Not much action on this end of the blvd. Java & Jam looked open but had no customers. I'm not sure when they close since they keep changing the policy. It's clearly not a happy hour spot.
Parking is limited on Las Olas; people are parking where they can. I'm not sure if the Parking Police are enforcing during the shutdown.
And here's the reason why. In an effort to widen the sidewalks, they've coned off Las Olas to 1 lane, allowing restaurants to put out more tables on the sidewalk.
One constant is that Piazza was dead. The rope tells me they were open but not a sole to be seen.
I drove all the way down to Bombay Dunbar; that place was predictably dead; there were a couple of. people at Roccos. Bossies was getting some people for happy hour. Note the 2 dudes having a blast standing on the sidewalk. This is the new definition of fun. Note the tables on the sidewalk. One of my beefs with Bossie's is that lack of good seating for small groups. This doesn't elevate that idea.
American Social with their usual crowd; the backwards ballcap crowd who still think that drinking in public is cool.
Wild Seas open with 0 customers as usual.
Saturday Night's Alright
I took a walk at 10pm to see if anything was going on. The Downtown Valet is on hiatus until further notice.
Yolo had some people outside; the usual patio mob. Leave it to the Restaurant People to not care about social distancing.
Del Frisco was dead empty. It wasn't clear if the bar was opened. There were a couple of people at the hostess stand asking questions; it's a crappy bar in normal times; I certainly wasn't going into this place dead empty.
IT Italy was cranking bad music; they had some people on the patio but nothing inside.
Big City removed all of their bar seating and it was a very, very sad sight. I was going to have a beer here but there was no point. I have alcohol at home. There's no point to drinking here in your own 6' square space.
The Red Door was closed and American Social had a small gathering on their sidewall; I didn't bother going inside. The Hotel could have turned off their lights and you wouldn't know the difference; I could almost hear crickets. They actually had a guy playing the Saxophone at the Cigar Bar, but that's the last place I want to be.
Conclusion
When I go out for drinks it's either to watch a ballgame, to get some social interaction, or to people-watch, and the current environment provides none of those things. Unless you're one of those people who think it's cool to eat and drink on the sidewalk, the current setup provides no incentive to leave your home.
Update 5/13/20
6 weeks in, I took a swing by the beach area. The first comedy were some people walking around with face masks on. Are you going to get a virus from the sunshine?
There's no parking at the beach; they're doing everything possible to keep people from coming to the beach, because morons have somehow equated sand and water with catching a flu-like virus.
Police still ensure that nobody walks on the sand, because the sand is infested with sea shells and evil viruses that will make your face melt.
One thing I'm absolutely sure about; there are a lot more people riding bikes. With less traffic (and no parking), biking seems more attractive. This guy is riding high; glad to see he has a helmet.
Update 4/2/20
The first day of the "Stay At Home" order and I noticed no difference in the number of people out and about. Still a few people walking on Las Olas. Traffic is sparse, which is refreshing. Could Broward Blvd be like this all the time please?
They've starting counting heads at Walmart, although with a pretty full parking lot there was no wait. It's a huge store. Even though the store felt empty (except for the people with their families of 12 running around). The checkout line was longer than I've ever seen it.
It went fairly quickly, but it made no sense that with fewer people there would be longer lines.
Update 3/31/20
I was filling my water bottle at Home Depot and noticed this smart use of the shopping carts. Apparently the city has imposed a capacity limit on the number of customers allowed in the store at a time and they're doing head counts. It's a pretty big store and I've never seen it very crowded.
I stopped at Fresh Market on my way home and they don't have a limit there; as they don't in Publix also. I guess they don't want to cause a panic by having lines are grocery stores. It shows how stupid government is; it's either important for public safety or not; imposing restrictions on one business and not another makes no sense. Publix is always crowded, and then you have to wait on line next to other people because they never have enough checkouts open. How about forcing stored to make the checkouts so we don't have to wait on lines?
Update 3/28/20
Roccos Tacos is boarded up; Bo's is closed tight, and the beach is largely deserted except for walkers who live at the beach.
At a time when the beach is usually packed with tourists and spring breakers; it's eerie. No traffic, which is a good thing.
Update 3/17/20
The Governor has closed all bars and restaurants in Florida for 30 Days. All because of this:
The coronavirus has infected 170 people in Florida, killing 5
Are you KIDDING ME? They're going to hurt millions of people, completely shut down the tourist industry, to save a few 100 lives? This is government overreach at it's ugliest.
Why not tell people who are at risk to stay home? If you're old, weak or have your immune system compromised, stay home. Order in. Buy masks and gloves. Put yourself in a bubble. Why do the 99% of us that are healthy have to suffer?
30 days is a long time to not go out to eat or for a beer. Americans are going to revolt.
Original Post
Fort Lauderdale is on Lockdown; this is what happens when you have glorified city council members pretending to be Leaders.
With 93 Coronavirus deaths nationwide (34,000 died from the flu last year), the city is ordering businesses to close early and have created a police-like state at the beach.
March is usually the busiest time of the year at the beach; this year there's just a spattering of spring breakers; probably locals and those who couldn't get a flight out of town.
Police line the strip; every 100 yards there's a detail. You'd think that the beach sand was infested with smallpox; not a virus that is probably nothing worse than a bad flu.
The beach is completely closed. Fancy handwritten sandwich boards line the sidewalks;
What's the logic of closing the beach? Are jellyfish carriers of the virus? Is the sand infested with disease? No, they just want to discourage large groups of people heading to the beach. So instead of limiting the volume of people on the beach, they shut it down completely. This is how stupid people do things; they can't figure out a sensible plan, so they just implement a ban.
And not only are they closing the beach, but they have police on the beach making sure nobody steps on the sand. Like there's landmines or something.
Bars and restaurants have to close at 10pm. What is the logic behind this? Is the Virus more dangerous after 10p? It just encourages people to go out earlier, so you'll have MORE PEOPLE at 8pm, which is the opposite of what is actually wanted. It also means that industry people can't get any food after their shift.
Dumb government at work. Fort Lauderdale is a warm climate, so the virus is less of an issue here (viruses die faster in warm weather, which is why flu season ends in late April). There's no sense to the nonsense, but it's what happens when don't have real leaders in charge of the city.
