NC Bar & Tavern Association reacts to 11 p.m. alcohol curfew

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — On Tuesday, Gov. Roy Cooper announced an executive order banning alcohol sales after 11:00 p.m. at restaurants statewide. Now the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association is reacting.

Gov. Cooper says the goal of the curfew, which goes into effect Friday, is to prevent restaurants from turning into bars at night and to limit mass gatherings.

The order also states that alcohol consumption makes people more likely to engage in behaviors that increase the spread of COVID-19.

Coglin’s Wilmington bar owner Zack Medford is the board president of the Bar and Tavern Association. He says the curfew underscores the unfairness that bars are still shut down.

“If these restaurants are supposed to stop serving alcohol after 11:00 p.m., that means for the last two months they’ve been acting like bars, while the 1,063 private bars across North Carolina have been forced to be closed,” Medford said. “So you have the same problems, the same number of people that are out drinking, but instead you’re consolidating them to a limited number of spaces.”

Medford says private bars need a bailout. He believes either all businesses should be allowed to open or all should be shut down.

Click here to view the order.