Local Nightclub Reacts to Governor’s Phase 3 Announcement

Friday, the Governor unveiled his Phase 3 plan which goes into effect tomorrow. You can read the full breakdown here. While there's a lot of pieces to the Governor's order that has people upset, one of the biggest issues is with the way the Governor is unfairly punishing certain types of establishments namely bars.

Under the new guidelines from the state, bars will remain closed in parishes with high incidence of COVID. If positivity rate is 5% or lower in parish for 2 weeks, the parish can opt-in to on-premise consumption subject to a number of restrictions. (By the way, Caddo does not qualify, our current positivity rate is about 7%. Bossier is at about 5.7%) The other additional restriction added today is that ALL (bars, restaurants, casinos, etc..) establishments must cease alcohol sales by 10 pm.

Clearly, during a time of struggle for everyone, a lot of local establishments, business owners and bartenders are quite upset. You can scroll through social media and see a TON of negativity towards the Governor and his announcement. You can get a little sampling below:

"So, pretty much, phase three is just Phase 1.5 with football. Got It."

"So, it’s Phase 2a, not Phase 3. There are MORE restrictions on restaurants, bars are still getting the shaft, and no change at casinos. WTF!"

"What is this bull****?!? Recall that [expletive deleted] Edwards."

As you can see, the people (especially those who make their livings in the service industry) are not pleased. I think Big Country in Bossier has, with the exception of a couple weeks in the summer, been completely shuttered for the last 6 months sums up everyone's feelings on the situation. Here's what they posted on Facebook shortly after the Governor's announcement:

Thanks governor JBE! Once again we are screwed! All bars and restaurants have to stop serving alcohol at 10pm?!? REALLY!!!! We were so EXCITED to open, but got SHOT DOWN again!! WOW! Hopefully we can financially survive this shut down...we have been closed way to long! SAD!

Many bars and service establishments assumed things were going to get easier for them in Phase 3. Sadly, that was not the case and now the owners of those establishments will have to make tough decisions about their futures and whether or not they can continue to hold onto their business.