Will Tenn. reopening mean more KY coronavirus cases? That’s the worry along the line.
Julie McCullah did something in Tennessee on Tuesday that she hasn’t been able to do in Kentucky for nearly two months — eat inside a restaurant.
McCullah and her 13-year-old daughter, Sophia, crossed the state line from Whitley County to Jellico, Tenn., for potato skins and pizza at a small restaurant called the Pizza Spot.
“We kind of wanted to sit down in a real setting and be waited on and someone else clean up the mess,” McCullah said.
Tennessee has jumped ahead of Kentucky in reopening retail stores and restaurant dining rooms, and it’s causing some heartburn along the state line.
Kentucky restaurants have been limited to drive-thru and carry-out service since Gov. Andy Beshear ordered inside seating closed March 16 to help stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, raising a concern for some owners that Tennessee restaurants with inside seating will take a bite out of their remaining business.
But the bigger worry for some officials in Kentucky counties along the line is that residents will head south to shop and eat in a place that has had far more coronavirus cases than Kentucky, and possibly bring the virus back home.
Bell County Judge-Executive Albey Brock said that earlier in the pandemic, when Kentucky moved more quickly than Tennessee to shut down restaurant seating, “droves” of people went to Tennessee to eat.
Brock expects something similar now that Tennessee dining rooms have reopened.
“I know it’s going to increase our exposure,” said Brock, a Republican.
To the west in Christian County, longtime Judge-Executive Steve Tribble, a Democrat, noted that Tennessee counties just to the south have had more COVID-19 cases than his county.
Tennessee, which has tested far more residents than Kentucky, had recorded 13,690 cases as of Tuesday, while Kentucky had only 5,822, though more people had died in Kentucky.
“We’re very much concerned, but there’s nothing we can do,” Tribble said. “You can’t stop everyone at the border.”
Travel ban blocked by judge
Until recently, going to Tennessee to eat out or shop for non-essential goods would have run afoul of an executive order Beshear issued March 30.
The order instructed Kentucky residents not to travel out of state except when it was necessary for work, medical care, or some other limited exceptions. And it said Kentuckians out of state at the time needed to quarantine for 14 days when they got back.
A federal judge temporarily blocked the travel ban on Monday, but Beshear issued a new one late Wednesday that said “any individual entering the Commonwealth of Kentucky with the intent to stay is asked to self-quarantine for 14 days” unless traveling for employment, to obtain groceries or medicine, or “when as part of their normal life live in one state and work or deliver services in another state.”
He said the new order is modeled on Ohio’s, which a court has approved.
Clinton County Judge-Executive Ricky Craig, a Republican, echoed concern over the risk that someone going to eat or shop in Tennessee could be exposed to the virus. The county has had only three confirmed cases and no deaths, according to the Lake Cumberland District Health Department.
If people go to eat and shop in Tennessee, “who’s to say what they may bring back in our county?” Craig said.
Several Tennessee restaurant owners said they’re seeing interest from Kentucky customers.
Melissa Chitwood, whose family operates Heritage Pizza in Jellico, said the store has had calls from people in Kentucky about whether the dining room was open.
Like many others in the state, it isn’t, despite permission to open up.
Chitwood said she and her family haven’t been comfortable that it’s safe to reopen the dining room, and many customers also aren’t yet convinced of the safety of eating in.
“They just don’t feel safe yet,” she said.
But she’s seen cars with Kentucky license plates pull into the parking lot and leave when the drivers realize the dining room isn’t open.
KY dining rooms closed until June?
Beshear, a Democrat, has begun easing the clampdown on Kentucky businesses that has helped keep down the number of cases here, but he said it will probably be June before the state begins reopening restaurants.
The governor allowed some health care practices such as dentists and chiropractors to reopen beginning April 27, and released guidelines this week for reopening a wider range of businesses, including manufacturing, office-based businesses and car dealers beginning May 11.
Brock, who took part in a conference call with Beshear this week, said the governor and state health officials appear to have a particular concern about restaurants.
Officials on the call discussed an incident in which several people were exposed to coronavirus in a restaurant setting, Brock said.
“You can just tell there’s a ton of consternation when it comes to the restaurants,” he said.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, announced April 24 that restaurants there could reopen inside seating at 50 percent capacity on April 27, with non-essential retail stores to follow two days later.
The state issued guidelines for restaurants that included having employees wear masks and gloves, screening employees for sickness and checking their temperature.
The guidelines said it would be a best practice to take the temperature of customers, but that at a minimum, restaurant workers should ask patrons about their health.
Chitwood, at Heritage Pizza in Jellico, said the guidance for restaurants to question customers’ health and take their temperatures seems onerous.
“It’s almost like you’re harassing your customers,” she said. “I’m a server, not a registered nurse.”
There’s also a potential problem if customers lie or have the virus but don’t know it, Chitwood said.
‘We could actually keep things a little safer here’
After Lee’s order, Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes drafted a local executive order to ease controls in his Kentucky county, where residents can drive from Franklin to downtown Nashville in 45 minutes.
Beshear, though, has been adamantly against allowing individual counties to loosen restrictions on their own.
The order noted that reopening businesses in Tennessee “may entice our residents to travel out of our community to seek those services being offered.”
Barnes, a Republican, said that’s a concern because the four Tennessee counties just to the south of Simpson County have had about 4,000 coronavirus cases. Simpson County had 28 as of Tuesday.
His primary motivation was to promote safety by increasing shopping and dining opportunities in hopes of keeping residents from going to Tennessee, Barnes said.
“You’re not going to keep everyone home, but if you can do something it’s better than doing nothing,” Barnes said. “We could actually keep things a little safer here.”
Barnes’ order would have allowed restaurants to reopen 25 percent of their seating capacity, with safeguards such as masks, gloves and temperature checks required for employees.
The order would have let retail businesses open at 25 percent capacity, with required social distancing and hand-sanitizing stations for customers.
Barnes raised a question during a teleconference with Beshear on Monday about allowing some counties or regions of Kentucky to reopen under different rules than others.
No, Beshear said — all parts of the state will reopen together, Barnes said.
Barnes said he doesn’t fault Beshear’s efforts to hold down the spread of coronavirus in the state, but wants him to realize that different parts of the state face different circumstances.
McCullah, of Whitley County, owns G&E Burgers in Williamsburg, overlooking the Cumberland River, and was concerned she would lose some business to Tennessee the first weekend restaurants there opened up.
It would help business in Kentucky to be able to do inside seating, she said.
“You get the restaurant feel of being waited on,” she said.
‘It’s gonna take a lot of business away from Kentucky’
Andy Rutherford sees the situation from both sides of the state line. He’s a partner in a Colorado Grill steakhouse in Franklin, the Simpson County seat, and another 20 minutes away in White House, Tenn.
He waited a week to reopen inside dining in Tennessee, hiring a company to sanitize the restaurant, training employees on safety and putting new procedures in place.
The Tennessee restaurant didn’t reach capacity on the first day open, which was Monday, but had a wait at times to get in on Tuesday, when diners waited in their cars, he said.
Many customers decided to continue using curbside pickup instead of coming inside, Rutherford said.
“I think a lot of our guests are still afraid of what’s going on,” he said.
But the retail and restaurant reopening in Tennessee will have an economic impact, Rutherford said.
“It’s gonna take a lot of business away from Kentucky,” he said.
‘Better that just about every state’
Concerns that other states might get a leg up on Kentucky by loosening restrictions on restaurants, stores and gatherings earlier haven’t swayed Beshear, who has focused on the public-health threat of taking off the clamps too soon.
Asked at a news conference this week about Indiana easing restrictions, Beshear said that he believed Kentucky is handling the pandemic “better that just about every state.”
Beshear said he believes governors are trying to make the best decisions for their states, and that time will tell which ones were right.
“But I would rather be remembered as someone who was measured, and who made decisions that he believed would protect his people, as opposed to one that gambled on going too early, too big, too fast,” he said.
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 4:33 PM.
