Restaurant owners and managers met yesterday to form a coalition to oppose the recent mandates from Governor Tom Wolf ordering restaurants to reduce business to take-out or delivery only over the holiday season due to Covid-19.
More than 44 people representing 23 Indiana County Restaurants were in attendance. Denny Della Penna of Bruno’s Restaurant led the meeting and while there is no good time for a shutdown like this, he said that having this happen during December, which is normally their most active month, was probably the worst time for this to happen. He said that one of the toughest things that he’s had to do is to lay off his employees.
Della Penna was also upset with the fact that he had to throw out a lot of his inventory on very short notice.
During the meeting, Della Penna quoted New York state statistics saying that 74 percent of the transmission of Covid-19 was due to private gatherings, with 8 percent at health care facilities and 1.5 percent at restaurants. He said that he tried to get statistics for Pennsylvania but was unable to.
Also discussed were a few restaurants that have not shut down since the mandates started, with one of them currently undergoing hearings and another, Taste of Sicily in Lebanon, winning a recent court case after it reopened to 100 percent capacity during the yellow phase of the Governor’s statewide shutdown.
The restaurateurs in attendance voted to form the coalition yesterday and the group is now working on its structure.
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