Denver Restaurants, Businesses Brace For Tighter Restrictions Amid Coronavirus Level 3 Order
DENVER (CBS4)- Amid an already tough year, restaurant owners in Denver are preparing for yet another round of restrictions. These restrictions, under the new Safer at Home Level 3 order, come as coronavirus cases continue to climb.
Now, all retail and restaurants will be limited to 25% capacity.
"The last six to seven months have been quite hard for us," Kyle G, who owns local coffee shop Drip Denver, told CBS4. "We've seen a severe decrease in our sales."
However, he says sales were slowly beginning to pick up recently. That's what's making the changes even more difficult.
"Just this month we've seen an increase in people coming in. Not huge, but kind of in the right direction," he explained. "We have a lot of people who come in because offices are closed. They come here and use the coffee shop kind of as a place to set up and do some work so losing more capacity is going to – I don't know, I don't know what it is going to do to us."
To move back to Level 2, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock says the city must reduce positivity rates and hold those numbers for two weeks. Hancock is encouraging mask wearing, social distancing, and hand washing even more vigilantly.
Kyle is hopeful people will heed these warnings, for the sake of his business and others.
"Seeing that we're actually going to be taking another step backwards, I don't know who will affect our hours, how we'll be able to keep our staff here," he said.
LINKS: Colorado COVID-19 Dashboard | Colorado COVID-19 Dial | Denver COVID-19 Restrictions