Hospitality Minnesota: Member Update August 28

Member Update

August 28, 2020

What's Inside:

Stepped Up Enforcement

Association Statement

MDH on Daily Briefing

Numbers Speak

Related News

ServSafe | Course and Test

Stepped Up Enforcement

Today, the Minnesota Departments of Public Safety, Health and Labor and Industry announced a coordinated plan to step up enforcement on establishments that are operating out of compliance with the guidance.

Teams will visit both reported and randomly-selected businesses across Minnesota. While we support compliance with the State's Guidance, we continue to raise concerns that the hospitality industry is being unfairly singled out for scrutiny.

Association Statement

Liz Rammer issued the following statement in response to the State's announcement of the stepped up enforcement:

Public officials acknowledge the vast majority of operators and patrons are doing it right in Minnesota, with previous Department of Public Safety announcements indicating that 98.5% of operators they visited were following guidance to keep guests and workers safe.

State officials have also expressed concern that a few rogue operators who refuse to comply may jeopardize our gains in Minnesota and limit future ability to expand capacity and safeguard Minnesotans’ health.

Enforcement efforts must be carried out fairly and evenly, and across all types of businesses that serve the public. Given that restaurants and bars represent only 2% of the cases MDH has identified this summer, we are concerned that this industry is being disproportionately and unfairly targeted and we have expressed these concerns to the health department.

MDH on Daily Briefing

Deputy Commissioner, Kris Erhesmann, answered a reporter's question on the effort at today's Daily Briefing (at 30:00) this way:

"Now I want to be clear that we know that most establishments are following Federal, State guidelines, but it's really hard for them to compete, or even to explain to their customers, why they are following the guidelines when there are other establishments who are not in compliance. And we know that when establishment and customers don't follow the guidance, we see outbreaks. and we continue to see spread in our communities.

So, you know, we owe it—meaning state government— to the establishments that are following the guidelines to address issues of noncompliance because for the folks that are following the guidelines and for those establishments, they need, they need us to support them in doing the right thing.

So that's why we're going to be working together so the three agencies will visit multiple establishments every weekend for the next few weeks. To make sure to identify noncompliance and to, you know have conversations about the importance of compliance."

Numbers Speak

We've been keeping a close watch on COVID-19 case data to support our continuous, strong advocacy with state officials for further expansion of capacity and other supports needed across the industry.

As reported by the Star Tribune, MDH has correlated 924 cases with visits to restaurants or bars this summer. These are cases where the Department assumes transmission occurred at a bar or restaurant but has not proven causation. Over the same period of time there have been over 45,900 cases identified in Minnesota. This means that 98% of transmission occurred in settings outside of restaurants or bars.

KEY TAKEAWAY: The Governor’s June 10 dial turn has not led to a significant spike in COVID-19 cases in this sector. Our state, its operators and its patrons have effectively mitigated the public health risk, while allowing critical expanded economic activity.

Additional data is available in this report.