TRENTON, N.J. – Governor Phil Murphy arbitrarily expanded New Jersey’s dining capacity limit to 35% on Wednesday and ended the 10 p.m. curfew; all changes take effect this Friday morning. The capacity increase covers other venues as well including gyms and fitness centers.
Far from drawing praise, Murphy’s decision to very-slightly loosen the reins on the state’s devastated restaurant and bar industry drew underwhelmed reactions from most quarters.
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“An increase of just 10% in customer capacity at a salon or barbershop may mean the owner can use one more chair,” said Eileen Kean, the State Director of the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). “In a restaurant, maybe they can seat people at one or two more tables. But, these small business owners still can’t be profitable enough to get past the current economic hardship, so we encourage the Governor to increase that limit as soon as possible.”
“Every surrounding state is at 50% at least. We’ve been behind our neighbors in lifting these draconian regulations for months. And the delay hasn’t shown any indication that we are doing any better with our rate of transmission; we are simply still economically killing our restaurant and hospitality industry,” added state Senator Declan O’Scanlon (R-13) in his own statement.
“It’s outrageous that after all this time with contact tracing showing restaurants are not the nexus for new cases, that the administration will only give them a 10% capacity increase,” O’Scanlon continued. “We have months of hard evidence from virtually every other north east state…we can go to 50% capacity with no negative health/transmission impact! Today is a small victory, but unfortunately not one that’s large enough to make a real difference to save the industry.”
A recent Harvard study found that approximately one-third of New Jersey small businesses failed in 2020.
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