Wilmington businesses react to new COVID-19 stay-at-home order

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Beginning Friday, businesses in North Carolina will have to follow a new set of rules.

Dine-in restaurants, bars, retail stores, and other businesses considered ‘non-essential’ must close by 10:00 p.m. Alcohol sales for on-site consumption end an hour earlier at 9:00 p.m.

For some businesses these new rules might not have much of an effect. For those that rely on late-night customers, this is just another hurdle to overcome as we finish out 2020.

“Oh, it’s going to hurt us a little bit because we’re cutting hours for everyone, it’s slow season already,” said Colton Cooper, manager of Bourbon Street in downtown Wilmington.

Cooper says business has already started to slow due to the temperatures getting colder.

“Especially at night it’s just been getting so cold, a lot of people won’t sit outside really,” he said. “We’d have to buy a bunch of heaters and stuff, but obviously with the slow season and stuff like that, the extra expenditure on that is kind of hard.”

Gov. Roy Cooper says his goal in enacting these new restrictions is to cut down on large groups gathering together without masks, losing inhibitions and potentially spreading COVID-19.

“I’m not sure if it will make a difference or not because we already did a shut down one time. I guess that helped the numbers and now they’re back up, but we’ll just have to see how it goes,” Colton Cooper said.

Down the street at Caprice Bistro, owner Patricia Moity says she was prepared for a potential shut down of all indoor dining.

“The last restrictions from our governor I think are very reasonable and I’m happy that at least we can still be opening and serving,” she said.

Moity says caprice typically closes at 10:00 p.m. during the week and 11:00 on weekends, so she doesn’t expect the new curfew to have much of an effect on business.

“We just have one hour less, but we decided to open at 4:00 p.m. instead of 5:00, so our staff is really supporting us and they’re all fine with that,” she said. “We’re very lucky.”

For other businesses like Bourbon Street, they’ll have to try to power through and hope for the best.

“We’ve already made it through one tough part, so we should be able to make it through again,” Cooper said.

Click here for more on the new restrictions.