Kansas City eases COVID curfew for bars, restaurants but says it’s unsafe to gather
Kansas City bars and restaurants can now stay open until midnight under new rules announced by Mayor Quinton Lucas on Wednesday.
In a noon news conference, Lucas extended the city’s emergency declaration to May 1 and eased the previous 10 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants issued in November to prevent large late-night gatherings during the holiday season. The change takes effect immediately.
To create more consistency across the metro, the city will now allow those businesses to stay open until midnight.
Earlier Wednesday, Jackson County announced it would ease its 10 p.m. curfew and allow bars and restaurants to serve until midnight and remain open until 12:30 a.m. Wyandotte County announced the same change the day before.
Since November, those jurisdictions, as well as Clay and Platte counties, had required the 10 p.m. closing time, while Johnson County’s restaurants and bars could stay open until midnight.
But Lucas and the city’s public health director, Rex Archer, noted the severe spread of COVID-19 and urged residents to continue taking precautions.
“If you’ve got a second-story bedroom window, just because it’s legal for you to jump out of that window doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” Archer said.
Lucas said that the city would review the new order in a month and that he would love nothing more than for life to return to normal.
“I want everybody spending money in Kansas City,” Lucas said. “But I also want everybody to live in Kansas City.”
Aside from the later closing time, most of Kansas City’s rules for businesses and group gatherings remain the same.
Since mid-November, restaurants and bars in Kansas City and most surrounding counties have been limited to 50% of their normal operating capacity. In addition to the curfew, Kansas City and Jackson, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri and Wyandotte County in Kansas have also limited group gatherings to 10 people. Limits on capacity and gatherings aren’t changing.
Officials have argued the early closing times help prevent the spread of COVID-19 because as the night goes on, bar patrons are more likely to be intoxicated and congregate in large groups without social distancing.
But Johnson County adopted far looser rules. In addition to the midnight closing time, group gatherings can be as large as 50 people. That order is set to expire at the end of the month.
Health officials in Clay and Platte counties had not announced their plans as of Wednesday afternoon and did not immediately respond to inquiries.
But COVID-19 is surging across the metro. The area recorded 960 new cases and 34 deaths Tuesday. The spike in deaths is in part due to Missouri’s weekly review of death certificates. It linked 176 deaths across the state to COVID-19.
In a release, Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. acknowledged the rise in cases.
“Let me be clear — our situation has not improved over the past two months. COVID-19 cases are up, our 14-day percent positive remains high as well as hospital capacity,” White said. “However, to remain consistent with neighboring jurisdictions, lessen confusion among residents and create fairness for eastern Jackson County businesses, we have decided to move forward in this manner.”
Lucas, too, acknowledged the severe state of the pandemic. But he said Kansas City had taken a strict approach to enforcing its emergency rules, including, when necessary, shutting down businesses. He said the number of Kansas City residents dying of COVID-19 per week is lower now than it was in December.
“Nothing that we say or do today suggests that we’re being any less serious about the threat of COVID-19,” Lucas said. “Nothing that we say or do today suggests that we’re not still in a moment of crisis.”
Asked why, given the state of the outbreak, he was relaxing the curfew, Lucas said it was “not the time to relax” and that Kansas City would keep up its enforcement of its rules. He said the 10 p.m. closing time had made the region safer. But Kansas City is “not an island” and regional consistency was important.
“People go across lines every single day,” Lucas said. “We do want to make sure that there’s some clarity in what’s happening and there’s some clarity for businesses.”
When Kansas City issued its 10 p.m. curfew before the holidays, Lucas noted a sharp increase in COVID transmission among young adults. He said those numbers fell over the nearly two months that the curfew was in place.
Lucas also celebrated that Kansas City had followed the advice of its public health officials in issuing that 10 p.m. curfew, an apparent swipe at Johnson County.
In November, public health directors from across the metro jointly recommended that earlier time for bars and restaurants. A few days later, Kansas City and most surrounding counties adopted it.
But though Johnson County’s health director was among those recommending the rule, the county let bars and restaurants remain open until midnight through the holidays.
Asked what he thinks of the midnight closing time, Kansas City’s public health director said he was “supporting the regional approach” with a caveat that it’s not safe to take the city up on those new rules.
“This is restaurant week,” Archer said. “Get all the carryout you can; support our restaurants. But don’t do indoor dining. It’s not safe yet.”
Lucas also announced during the news conference that Kansas City would provide funds for rapid re-housing of homeless individuals during the winter months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, he said, started earlier this week and runs through May. It’s funded through federal relief money passed to help respond to COVID-19.
Kansas City may also defer licensing fees for small businesses with less than $2 million in annual revenue to help offset losses suffered during the pandemic and ensuing economic crisis. Lucas said he would introduce the legislation at Thursday’s City Council meeting.
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 1:09 PM.
