Slinging Bud heavies, buffalo wings, and the like to eager patrons is essential work for Danny Presti and Keith McAlarney, the managers and owners of Mac’s Public House. When they publicly declared their bar an “Autonomous Zone,” in defiance of Governor Cuomo’s executive order to shut down, they did so with their backs against the wall. Like many small business owners in New York and elsewhere, Covid lockdowns had left them with nothing to lose.
This Tuesday, the owners refused to cease and desist. When their liquor license was seized, they gave the goods away for free. Drinks were on the house! Why not? They would be bankrupt soon, regardless. One owner, Presti, was arrested and spent the night in jail for giving his liquor to his friends on his property. The next evening, a massive crowd of nearly one thousand showed up to demand Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio allow Mac’s to reopen.
Mac’s is the latest incarnation of a neighborhood bar that stood at its location for generations. In the working-class Grant City neighborhood, its decor and menu typifies the local havens that dot the Staten Island landscape along its solitary 13 mile rail line. But now, after a year of struggles, it has the unfortunate luck of laying on the wrong side of an imaginary line that divides Staten Island in half.
They are now in Cuomo’s “orange zone.” Though, if you thought that the average number of new cases arising in the “orange” part of Staten Island would be higher than the “yellow” one, you would be mistaken.
Like many jurisdictions, the method the Cuomo administration uses to determine outbreak severity is by calculating the percentage of positive Covid tests. However, if you thought that would mean all the neighborhoods and towns around the state with higher positive case rates than Grant City would be “orange,” you would also be mistaken. In fact, other neighborhoods with higher positive case rates in New York City are not locked down, even one with nearly one hundred more positive cases than Mac’s zip code last week.
Furthermore, New York City, with its thousands of contact tracers working for several months, had not reached out to Mac’s Public House even once to report that a customer was linked to a positive case, according to its owners. In fact, the contact tracing corps has been unresponsive to demands from elected officials to release data linking cases to the businesses the city and state are ordering shuttered.
This has left Staten Island with a fictional Berlin Wall of covid segregation. In a borough with 83% car ownership, it isn’t hard to skirt the checkpoints and Mac’s competitors are open for business. Lee’s Tavern, a sign-less secret famous for its clam pies (try it, seriously) and just a train stop away, was crowded Wednesday night with Staten Islanders looking to wet their whistle after the protest. In fact, just 400 yards up the street, Mac’s would be under “yellow zone” restrictions, while deep in the bowels of the orange zone, customers pack Target, Home Depot, and other “essential” big boxes. As artist-provacateur Scott Lobadio said at the Mac’s rally, “You can go to HomeGoods to buy a porcelain bunny…, but these guys can’t sell a g*** d*** hamburger and a beer.”
This is all part of Cuomo’s grand microcluster strategy; a plan so perfect that it hasn’t yet worked one time in New York City.
On October 6th, the governor announced the designation of three “orange” and “red” zones in Queens and Brooklyn. Churches, synagogues, and mosques were closed, triggering a smackdown by Justice Gorsuch and the Supreme Court. Businesses were padlocked, including that of a Jewish single mother while just blocks away, crowds amassed to celebrate the election results. The lockdown restrictions were eased after two weeks, and then again on November 6th. However, the seven day rolling average of new cases in November rose approximately 150% and 280% in Brooklyn and Queens, respectively. Those boroughs still contain the zip codes with the highest percentage of positive cases, not Staten Island. Success!
The clear ineffectiveness of this government policy designed to bankrupt them is not the only thing taking the wind out of the sails of many New York business owners, from those currently under expanded restrictions in “zones,” to those who likely will, as our citywide and statewide cases continue to rise. The complete lack of urgency towards reopening and a general lack of empathy for business owners and workers from those individuals still earning their paycheck through daily zoom meetings were dual kicks to the gut.
Many of the lockdowns that occurred this spring were warranted. Flattening the curve to relieve hospital capacity made sense. Most business owners I spoke to at that time were willing to shut down, and many were fearful of a deadly virus themselves. Almost every affected state, municipality and country implemented some form of restrictions. Mission accomplished.
What sets New York apart, along with some other notable states like Michigan, was the deliberate lengthening of the lockdown, long after the caseload subsided, and long after the PPP loan funding ran out.
We were all familiar with the term: “fifteen days to flatten the curve.” Businesses upheld their end of that bargain, but when it came time to reopen, fifteen became, well, you know…
Mayor de Blasio all but declared victory over Covid-19 when he announced a still to-be-scheduled ticker tape parade for healthcare workers on April 22, a week after the city hit its peak seven day average of new cases, and the counts began to subside. By Memorial Day, new cases were just 11% of what they were at their height, and by June, the city’s curve was as flat as an ice skating rink. Still, New York did not open. Even its beaches, which for those unfamiliar, are wide open outdoor areas where people naturally socially distance in small groups on their blankets, remained closed. Gyms would not be permitted to open with restrictions until September 2nd, and for restaurants, they would wait until September 30th, with a 25% capacity limit.
Now, with current lockdowns in place, and more likely to follow, it’s hard to blame business owners for doubting the promises of a short pause this time around. Unlike the Governors of many red states, it wasn’t the priority of New York city hall or the capitol in Albany. Begging for a bailout was easier.
The city and state’s reopening policy has also given business owner’s pause. The hiring and development of a contact tracing corps was, in addition to an obvious decrease in cases, specifically needed before the economy could reopen. The city delayed and mismanaged the process, as only our Mayor could, but eventually, three thousand people were hired.
Still, that was not enough. At the end of May, after Staten Island had met all the data metrics the Governor originally used to guide reopening, business owners began to get frustrated. Bobby Catone, the owner of two Sunbelievable Tanning Salons, took matters in to to his own hands and became the first local scofflaw to reopen. Like Mac’s, a rally ensued, the media came around, and Mr. Catone was issued violations and threatened with arrest. It was specifically the lack of an adequate contact trace corps which the government cited as the reason why he could not reopen.
Now he is forced to shut down again. Tanning, apparently, is not essential; although this time, his argument for staying open is slightly different. He was allowed to operate at all of his locations from July 3rd through November 23rd. As he explained to me, not once did any contact tracers inform him or his managers that a single case was traced to his establishments. How can business owners trust the government’s declaration that they are a non-essential spreader of covid when there is seemingly no evidence to back it up? New York City Health and Hospitals has not released any relevant data, and again, they have refused to do so despite calls from elected officials.
The final reason New York’s small businesses feel they have nothing to lose is that there is no federal program or financial support to offset the cost of remaining closed. PPP loans were imperfect, no doubt, and some businesses were helped more than others. To their credit, and despite the number being a bit paltry, the City of Los Angeles is at least giving a one time stipend of $800 to its restaurant workers while they’re closed as part of a forced shut down.
Though Cuomo and de Blasio are quick to blame Congress for not funding a new round of covid spending, there is nothing limiting either the state or city from supporting business owners like Mac’s. Deferring quarterly property tax bills due on January 1 would help many, as would a deferment of sales tax payment on December 21st. Sadly, none have been offered.
Business owners like Presti and McAlarney are forced to endure the death of a thousand cuts. First the initial lockdown, then an extended and mismanaged reopening, and finally a second lockdown. It is no surprise that with their own bankruptcy looming, more and more business owners are making the decision to defy orders. They have nothing to lose, and we should expect to see more reopening protests, more defiance, and more closures; all while the rules remain stringent as the vaccine becomes available.
Joseph Borelli is the minority whip of the New York City Council and a spokesman for the N.Y. State GOP. He’s also a Republican commentator, author, adjunct professor and former Lindsay Fellow at the City University of New York’s Institute for State and Local Governance. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeBorelliNYC.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.