There is a post on the recc list that advocates that Democratic governors should immediately act to close all bars and restaurants. On the surface this makes a lot of sense – after all, these are places where people get together in what are often close quarters, so shouldn’t we just shut them all down?
I would venture to guess that people who take this position live in homes or apartments with adequate cooking facilities, a big refrigerator, and plenty of storage space. I have news for you: not everyone is in this situation. Consider the student in a college far from their own home who is living in a dorm room with a fridge that barely comes up to their waist and a two burner stove or a hot plate. The freezer holds two ice trays with maybe enough room for a bag or two of vegetables. Storage space for canned food? You must be kidding.
Or consider the situation that some friends of mine are in right now. They flew in from Germany for a relatives’ funeral and are now stuck here for an indeterminate amount of time because their return flights have been canceled. They happen to be in a place with rudimentary cooking facilities, but there are hundreds of planeloads of people who are in the same circumstance who are in hotels. Those people could afford to travel so could possibly afford to arrange food deliveries for at least a while – but have you considered the logistics of trying to have hundreds of meals a day delivered to hotels and distributed to the rooms? It isn’t possible. Food delivery services are already very stressed even with most restaurants staying open.
Or consider the situation of the many people who are just barely avoiding homelessness and staying in the studio apartments or single units in hotels. Many of these in old buildings in urban areas have no parking spaces whatsoever, so the arrival of as few as 10 delivery service vehicles at once would completely shut down traffic in the area. Twenty or thirty would be necessary to actually do the job, several times a day. Keep in mind that in some parts of major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco there are entire blocks that are almost completely composed of this type of hotel. Would you care to guess how long it would take for food delivery services to blacklist that neighborhood? And then what do those people do, where do they go?
Or consider the homeless themselves, who scrape together money to go to a coffee shop or fast food place. Those are the only places where they can get a hot meal where there is also a toilet and a place to wash their hands with soap. When those close, how do they order food delivery? Do you really think that a GrubHub driver will accept an order for the fifth tent on the right just past Main Street at second? I don’t. Cooking at home is not an option, because they have no home. How do the homeless eat?
Unless you have an answer to these questions, please don’t suggest that Democratic governors should close all cafés and restaurants. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it could be, and the world we live in includes a lot of people for whom dining in public spaces is the only food option. We can do everything possible to sanitize those spaces and make them safe, but we must not shut them down by fiat without considering alternatives the people who are displaced. Closing the only food source for the poorest people and then starting to think about what might replace it is like jumping out of a plane and then starting to sew a parachute. It doesn’t end well.