Coronavirus pandemic shuts down Florida bars and nightclubs. Bradenton barkeepers react

It was very much a mixed bag of emotions for local bar owners, managers and employees on Tuesday, after Gov. Ron DeSantis announced every bar in the state will have to close as of 5 p.m. St. Patrick’s Day for the next 30 days due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

There was anger.

“It’s (expletive) ridiculous,” said an employee at the Old Main Pub in downtown Bradenton. The employee did not wish to be identified and insisted he was not speaking for the ownership.

There was fear and uncertainty.

“It was a huge announcement,” said Cork’s Cigar Bar manager Meghan Miller. “It’s going to hurt a lot of people. We aren’t big chains. We are local pubs. Local small businesses. We were already feeling the impact of the snowbirds going home a month early.”

Miller said most responsible businesses have been doing the right thing from the onset. In her case, it was constant rounds of sanitizing the bar. For the past three days, “It’s been only plastic cups with no exceptions. They were only being used once. I think if everybody had been doing the right thing from the beginning, this wouldn’t be necessary.”

It was a belief that the announcement was coming eventually, Miller said. “But we thought it would be two weeks, not 30 days. That’s a long time. And that affects everybody down the line to our liquor and beer reps, to the warehouse workers, to my bar back and cleaning crew.”

Miller said people rely on that supply chain for income. She was not happy the governor didn’t talk more on Tuesday about how the government intends to help.

“We have been told that there would be some help with things like immediate unemployment, but I haven’t had anyone official tell me that,” Miller said. “I’d like to know more. I hope that the governor will come back on television and tells us he knows how this is going to affect our livelihoods and what he plans to do about it.”

How will bar ban be enforced?

For law enforcement, the order brought some confusion.

Manatee Sheriff Rick Wells has reached out to the governor’s office for clarification after consulting with other sheriffs in the state, the Florida Sheriff’s Association and his own legal team. The order did not coincide with the message DeSantis delivered during Tuesday morning’s news conference.

DeSantis’ executive order actually calls for any establishment licensed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation that generates at least 50 percent of its gross proceeds from alcohol sales, must suspend selling alcohol.

The order does not actually order the bars to close, Wells pointed out.

Local law enforcement will be helping enforce the governor’s executive order, but they are hoping to do so with education.

“We understand the hardship that this puts on that entire industry. We don’t like that they’re all gone through this,” Wells said. “We do not want to have to go in and force it. We will go in nicely and asked them to comply.”

Wells is hopeful that bar owners in Manatee County will comply on their own or when the order is explained to them. Deputies will patrol any bars within their assigned zones in between other calls to ensure bars aren’t serving alcohol.

Violating an executive order of the governor is a second-degree misdemeanor, but the written order does not call for the bars to actually close. As currently written, Wells said, they would need to see bars actually serving and selling alcohol for it to be a crime.

Meanwhile, the sheriff’s office, is also working with judges, the state attorney’s office and the public defender’s office to resolve as many court cases as possible in order to reduce the jail population during the COVID-19 crisis.

“We are not trying to put anyone in jail for violation of this order,” Wells said.

DeSantis order comes on St. Patrick’s Day

A pretty good crowd was gathering at McCabe’s Irish Pub in downtown Bradenton around 10 a.m. Tuesday morning.

It was more than just a Tuesday for the Irish and those of Irish descent. It was St. Patrick’s Day.

McCabe’s owner Thomas Stynes was already predicting unpredictability for how this year’s celebration might go. He felt lucky to still be open as other states had already taken similar actions. More important to Stynes was Ireland’s decision to shut down every single bar and pub in the country on its most celebrated day.

“For the first time in history,” Stynes marveled. “Can you believe that?”

As for DeSantis’s announcement, “It’s a wise move,” Stynes said. “It is what it is. You can’t compare selling a bunch of beer to protecting people’s lives. Is it an overreaction or is not enough? No one knows, but public safety has to come first. Lives have to come first, but hopefully in a couple of months this will be one of those times when we can look back and laugh and say, ‘Remember when?’”

This story was originally published March 17, 2020 at 1:00 PM.