DALLAS — Some of your favorite restaurants and businesses may be tightening up safety measures to try and avoid COVID-19. Why? There are plenty of people who are just getting back in town from traveling or hosting visitors for Thanksgiving.
A couple of business owners are in the hot seat for not doing much, if anything, to protect customers or their employees. In the Deep Ellum area of Dallas, some businesses are being blasted for the lack of people wearing masks and social distancing.
Someone recently spotted one place that was crowded and caught it on camera. The picture was posted on Reddit and shows a bar or restaurant in Dallas packed and hardly anyone with masks on.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but for Avi Adelman, he only needs seven.
“It’s going to be a long winter,” said Adelman.
He lives in downtown Dallas. He is known in the community as a watch dog, but he calls himself the barking dog.
“Somebody who pays attention and barks when there’s a problem,” Adelman confirmed.
He works as a freelance photographer, so by trade, he has to be observant. Adelman did not take the picture, and he says he didn’t need to. He’s seen how many people show up for a night out on the town seemingly with no concern for the virus.
“People are just dying to get out and do stuff. I understand it, but get a brain cell,” he added.
On the Reddit website, users responded to the picture with comments like, “It smells virusy [sic] in there” and “I am legit shocked.”
One commenter admitted the frequency of the situation, saying, “It’s been like this every weekend for a while now, not really anything new for anyone wondering.”
Kim Finch runs Thunderbird Station and Double White Trailor, two bars in the neighborhood. She says places that continue to pack the house are giving other businesses a bad rep.
“'Cause now everybody says all bars are horrible, all bars are the ones doing this, and that’s not true because I know a lot of bars and restaurant owners that doing as much as we are, and they are doing their best,” said Finch.
Her employees are constantly getting tested for COVID-19, restrooms are cleaned on the hour every hour, and she has a strict mandatory mask policy for both her staff and customers.
Adelman says that all sounds good, but this isn’t just about business owners. The entire community needs to be on the same page as Finch and others who are trying their absolute best to stay safe.
“If you listen to the police scanner, you will hear just last night there were parties going on in apartment buildings,” he said.
“He’s right, those bad players ruin it for the rest of us,” added Finch.
Finch also says the threat of COVID-19 killing businesses is still very real and that’s why some owners are putting profit over people.
She is afraid of losing her business too, but she says she is even more afraid of losing any of her workers or customers to the virus, so she says she will not be letting up on how she runs both bars in this pandemic.