Last week, bars and restaurants throughout Western New York went on a roller coaster ride of restriction.
At one point it looked as if the mandate to serve food with any alcohol purchase had expired. A day later news had spread that the rule was extended by the Governor, and it would stick for at least another month. Then, over 90 restaurants that had won a lawsuit against the state's curfew saw that decision reversed, and they would be forced to close at 11:00PM once again (the curfew will be moved to 12:00 midnight this Monday). The back and forth then again inspired debates on the need for the extra restrictions.
"I personally am in favor of pushing the curfew a little bit later, like midnight or 1:00AM," Assemblywoman Monica Wallace told us last Friday. "I don't think bars and restaurants should be open until 4:00AM the way they traditionally are."
Midnight, 2:00AM, 10:00PM. Is anybody convinced that the slight movement of when a business is and isn't allowed to be open is making a tangible difference? Or the idea that tacking a $1.00 bag of chips on to your order will greatly change someone's behavior once they are already out at a bar?
While it's easy to get bogged down on whether or not you believe the restrictions are "arbitrary," the glaring message that it sends is there is a lack of trust in the public to act in their own best interest.
I asked Wallace during our conversation about the restrictions if we should simply trust people to be responsible.
"No," Wallace said. "People don't act responsibly and guess what, the consequences are felt by the rest of the community when they don't... when you go home and bring it to Grandma and Grandpa, or you go to the grocery store and give it to the clerk, that's the problem."
Never mind the tired expression of bringing the virus home to your grandparents that ignores the fact that most people don't live like Charlie Bucket before he inherited Wonka's Chocolate Factory and a Covid vaccine has been available for anyone over 65 for some time, the statement is a glaring indication of how the public is viewed by the people who they put in office.
Compare that to the comments of Congressman Brian Higgins, a fellow Democrat, who stood alongside restaurant owners last week to talk about the changing mandates they have been dealing with over the past year.
"Prior to vaccines, people were simply expected to do the right thing to keep themselves and their family safe," Higgins said. "They have been doing this throughout this entire pandemic. They know how to do it."
"The restrictions imposed on them were unfair to begin with, and many of them were arbitrary...Too much restriction, too much restriction, too much restriction. Now we have vaccines. We're the world leader in the distribution and administration of vaccines. People need something to look forward to, to be optimistic about."
Week after week, polls are released giving glimpses of what the public thinks of the President, Governor, etc., and millions are spent within campaigns across the country to see just how these politicians are viewed. Now, in the second year of dealing with Covid, we are getting a glimpse of what the politicians think about us.
