With COVID cases rising, Sununu, other New England governors hold off on tighter restrictions for now

By: Ethan DeWitt, Concord Monitor

As early November’s unusually warm weather gives way to colder temperatures, New Hampshire’s restaurants are bracing for a new crisis.
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COVID-19 cases are rising in the state to higher levels than ever before, breaking the all-time record for the most in one day on Sunday.

Dire predictions from national and state leaders are suggesting the second wave of the deadly virus has arrived, and that the peak for this surge is at least several weeks off. Gov. Chris Sununu told WMUR Sunday that case rates could be as high as 500 to 1,000 a day by the end of November.

And while most restaurants have embraced indoor dining, the cold weather means that customers who want to take extra precautions and eat outside may soon be out of luck. The heat lamps that many restaurants have deployed to make outdoor dining bearable in the cold may be no match against snowy weather and frigid evenings.

“I think its a little bit of a mixed bag,” said Mike Somers, president and CEO of the New Hampshire Lodging and Restaurant Association. “I think there are some businesses that are legitimately going to make a try for outdoor dining. But those of us who have lived in New Hampshire for a while will recognize when it’s 25 degrees or 20 degrees and the wind’s howling, not too many people are going to eat outside.

As for the rest of winter, Somers says the concerns from restaurants are existential. “Frankly we are extremely concerned that businesses will not survive,” he said.

For now, restaurants have a ray of hope: Despite skyrocketing cases, Gov. Chris Sununu has stressed the state has no plans to return to the lockdown restrictions imposed in March to curb the spread of cases.

“We are confident this can and will be managed,” the governor said in a press conference Thursday.

But that calculus could change, Sununu says. And even if it doesn’t, and restrictions remain relatively lax, a drop in customer demand could prove devastating this winter.

Somers says restaurants are now working to retrofit their indoors to meet state guidelines, which stipulate that nonporous, solid barrier are set up between tables if tables cannot be spaced adequately. Doing that could get capacity up to 70 to 80%, Somers said.

“I think everyone’s trying to shift to indoors as best they can, as safely as they can,” he said. “I think the real challenge is going to be to see how consumers feel about it.” 

Should rising cases prompt the governor to impose tighter restrictions on reopening – or even shut down in-person dining entirely – it will be a familiar scenario for restaurants. In March, just ahead of St. Patrick’s Day, Sununu issued an order closing bars and restaurants to in-person service and allowing transition to takeout, arguing that the allure of the holiday could have led to outbreaks in bars otherwise. He later relaxed that several times over the summer after New Hampshire’s surge in cases began to taper off.

But as cases creep back up there are major differences that could make the experience worse this time around, Somers says.

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