“The impacts would be horrific.”
That’s how New Orleans & Co. CEO Stephen Perry characterizes the impact that new rumored COVID regulations could have on restaurants in New Orleans.
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Perry told Newell Normand on WWL Radio that he’s heard Mayor LaToya Cantrell is considering “New York style” mitigation measures that would include Big Easy restaurants requiring patrons to show their vaccination cards in order to be seated.
Perry said that would amount to the city making small businesses do the dirty work of vaccine enforcement.
“Who you’re putting into the breach on doing the enforcement is $14 or $15/hour hostesses greeting people as they walk into a restaurant, he said.
Perry said it’s an unfair ask when government agencies don’t have the same restrictions on in-person service.
“With the crisis that we’re in now, why should you be able to renew your driver’s license without being vaccinated,” he said. “Why should you be able to go to City Hall to conduct business? Why should you be able to register to vote?
“If government needs to step in, if we’re at that level of a crisis,” Perry continued, “then let government create the enforcement mechanism through its interactions with its populace but not put that on the backs of the most damaged small-business people and workforce in our city.”
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Perry believes the harm these new rules could cause is almost incalculable.
“If we add a restriction this pervasive,” Perry said, “we could have many, many businesses and workers for whom this would be unrecoverable from.”