15 ms·

Looks like The Onion was right on with their reporting: "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them"

MiroF 6y ago
> "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them Even without these laws, personal decisions would have decimated the business regardless. Even in places didn't shut down, patronage plummeted.
- anm89 6y ago
  Don't eat the onion.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    I know it's the onion, I'm responding to the commentary that it's making. Many of its articles have depth to them.
- just-juan-post 6y ago
  If people are scared and won't go to restaurants and bars then why continue to keep them closed? You are saying that patronage is already down so why even restrict them? Give people and businesses a choice in the matter. This is about letting individuals and businesses make their own decisions without the government forcing them to close.
  - bmn__ 6y ago
    That would be fine and dandy if the decision to engage in risky behaviour only affects the individuals and businesses making them. However, this is not the case in reality.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves. It’s about preventing the spread of infectious disease. You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. That being said, I’m not sure what the best policy is. It doesn’t seem feasible to have a complete lockdown that extends for many months. So we have to be clever, keep learning, and find good solutions. We can minimize the risks and prioritize health while allowing society to function in an altered fashion.
    - just-juan-post 6y ago
      > This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves Making decisions for ones self is exactly the principal that the USA was founded on. > You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. See also: Drinking, condom-less sex, smoking, and junk food. All of these things directly or indirectly harm others and if this is about public safety then it's time yourself and others start movements to ban them. The "you may be hurting people indirectly" argument never worked and it's getting more brittle with time. Have a good laugh with me this Sunday night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
      - dwaltrip 6y ago
        Have you thought about how many people need to die for you to change your mind on this one? Just curious where you draw the line.
        just-juan-post 6y ago
        I'm fine with 1 million. One million is 99.7% of the USA. Multiple studies have shown that the fatality rate is about .3%.
        scottlocklin 6y ago
        Have you considered that your favored interventions are, in addition to being extremely harmful to society in every measurable way, probably also completely ineffective in altering the outcomes? Sweden didn't do a thing and is basically done with this nonsense, presumably for all time from the looks of the plots; Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate. Lockdown fetishists should be greeted with "citations needed."
  - watwut 6y ago
    > If people are scared and won't go to restaurants If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants ... Or long form: If people know there is infectious disease around with asymptomatic transmission and rationally decide not to go to restaurant to ... Framing does a lot.
    - just-juan-post 6y ago
      > If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants See here's the thing: Just because you and others like you have a certain definition of "responsible" doesn't mean it should or does apply to everyone. Should we ban skydiving because it's irresponsible? Condom-less sex? This is about choice. Re-open and let people and businesses choose. Have a laugh with me tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
      - 666lumberjack 6y ago
        If it were possible to ensure everyone who would potentially be exposed to covid-19 as a result of your decision to engage in high-risk activities had given informed consent, I'd be fine with letting people decide for themselves. Since that isn't the case, your comparison is patently absurd. Skydiving isn't contagious.
      - piva00 6y ago
        No, this is about the common good, where personal choices might have a disproportionate impact unto others. I don't care if you don't care about getting infected or not, I do care if you get infected and spread that to others that don't hold your values. Society and populations don't work well with personal responsibility when their actions' impacts are too far removed from their personal sphere, if you kill someone 3rd hand because you infected someone who worked in a care facility: how are you going to know and act accordingly? This bullshit about personal freedoms and responsibility in the middle of a pandemic tells me more about the people who don't have a holistic view of society but this ideologue monologue about personal freedom, this is your value, this isn't how society work yet.
      - watwut 6y ago
  - statop 6y ago
    This is a story about the ability of human kind to work together to defeat a common enemy. So far we have failed. The reasons for that failure are many, but it has become clear over this 6+ months that a coordinated top-down plan is what we’re lacking. The “libertarian” approach like you mentioned has been tried- every relaxation of covid restrictions has been followed by acceleration in the case count. Turns out prayers and positive thinking were unsuccessful in limiting virus transmission. Be honest Juan, when was the last time you really made your own decision anyhow?
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    Epidemiology is not accomplished by allowing people to make personal choices, because your average guy has no understanding of either epidemiology or statistics. As we have already seen, what actually happens is that a small number of people with vocal delusional beliefs do wildly risky things that endangers everyone else.
  - zamadatix 6y ago
    Ignoring the whole "we should open/we should close" debate (I'm not an expert in economics or virology) it's perfectly possible for the vast majority of people to not want to go to bars/restaurants and to need to chose, as a group instead of individual, to close them to lower spread. I.e. >50% doesn't always have the same outcome as 100% People do get a choice in the matter but part of that is people get a choice whether they want to act independently or enforce a choice (to some level) as a group.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Most people advocating for reopening would kick restaurant employees off of unemployment. Those employees are the people in the equation with the least power, and the most exposed to the risk.
  - loco5niner 6y ago
    > If people are scared and... You're framing this the wrong way. It's not about being scared, its about being careful.
- twblalock 6y ago
  I see no reason to believe this. Restaurants are pretty packed in the places that reopened, and they were pretty packed in NYC until literally the day the lockdowns started.
  - MiroF 6y ago
    > Restaurants are pretty packed in the places that reopened Not true of where I live in San Francisco > they were pretty packed in NYC until literally the day the lockdowns started That's before people got scared because NYC was literally the first place for this to happen and most people had no idea what was going on. You can see how restaurants performed in countries that remained open, like Sweden, where you can find lots of people talking about how their sales dropped 80% despite no lockdown. For a low margin business, that kills.
ackbar03 6y ago
The onion was always ahead of their time. Also reflects what kind of world we live in
clairity 6y ago
nyc and other municipalities really bungled the categorization of risk. restaurants and bars shouldn't have been lumped together in the first place. most restaurants could have employed some modest measures and stayed open at 80-90% capacity (which may be below break-even for some, but probably enough to ride out the pandemic with price hikes and/or modest gov loans), as risk is isolated between tables (no, that one hypothesized case of down-blower transmission is not proof of significant risk) and you shouldn't be sharing breathing space with people you don't trust. people who would eat at a restaurant together likely ate together in private anyway when restaurants were shuttered. bars, on the other hand, by their very nature make it very difficult to contain transmission risk, because the whole point of a bar is to lower your guard to promote mixed socialization. distancing, talking gently, limiting respiratory ejections, and/or wearing a mask just don't go together with drinking and carousing. (private parties then likely became a primary transmission vector, but there's no way to stop private parties without truly draconian measures.) we could have let restaurants save themselves by remaining open, and tackled the remaining, more manageable issue of closed bars with supplemental programs.
- daheza 6y ago
  I feel like this might ignore that a good portion of restaurant sales are from the bar. Chilis, Applebees, to an extent BJs Restaurant. I feel only a few companies have adopted to the fact that you can deliver alcohol. There's no reason that those bar sales, can't be from the restaurant over postmates or uber eats.
  - razius 6y ago
    You know the point of a bar is not the alcohol, right?
    - kevml 6y ago
      Well, it is. But not the only point.
  - jlg23 6y ago
    > There's no reason that those bar sales, can't be from the restaurant over postmates or uber eats. Except for the prices, maybe? While it is true that most restaurants make most (or even all) of their profits with drinks, customers probably realize that they are paying 200% markup for a zero-effort service if they ordered beers from a restaurant instead of getting them themselves...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

MiroF 6y ago

> "Study Finds Most Restaurants Fail Within First Year Of It Becoming Illegal To Go To Them Even without these laws, personal decisions would have decimated the business regardless. Even in places didn't shut down, patronage plummeted.

anm89 6y ago
Don't eat the onion.
- MiroF 6y ago
  I know it's the onion, I'm responding to the commentary that it's making. Many of its articles have depth to them.
just-juan-post 6y ago
If people are scared and won't go to restaurants and bars then why continue to keep them closed? You are saying that patronage is already down so why even restrict them? Give people and businesses a choice in the matter. This is about letting individuals and businesses make their own decisions without the government forcing them to close.
- bmn__ 6y ago
  That would be fine and dandy if the decision to engage in risky behaviour only affects the individuals and businesses making them. However, this is not the case in reality.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- dwaltrip 6y ago
  This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves. It’s about preventing the spread of infectious disease. You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. That being said, I’m not sure what the best policy is. It doesn’t seem feasible to have a complete lockdown that extends for many months. So we have to be clever, keep learning, and find good solutions. We can minimize the risks and prioritize health while allowing society to function in an altered fashion.
  - just-juan-post 6y ago
    > This isn’t about people making decisions for themselves Making decisions for ones self is exactly the principal that the USA was founded on. > You might be fine, but if you are asymptomatic, you can directly harm or kill others and not even know it. See also: Drinking, condom-less sex, smoking, and junk food. All of these things directly or indirectly harm others and if this is about public safety then it's time yourself and others start movements to ban them. The "you may be hurting people indirectly" argument never worked and it's getting more brittle with time. Have a good laugh with me this Sunday night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
    - dwaltrip 6y ago
      Have you thought about how many people need to die for you to change your mind on this one? Just curious where you draw the line.
      - just-juan-post 6y ago
        I'm fine with 1 million. One million is 99.7% of the USA. Multiple studies have shown that the fatality rate is about .3%.
      - scottlocklin 6y ago
        Have you considered that your favored interventions are, in addition to being extremely harmful to society in every measurable way, probably also completely ineffective in altering the outcomes? Sweden didn't do a thing and is basically done with this nonsense, presumably for all time from the looks of the plots; Massachusetts is still mostly locked down and has 4x the death rate. Lockdown fetishists should be greeted with "citations needed."
- watwut 6y ago
  > If people are scared and won't go to restaurants If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants ... Or long form: If people know there is infectious disease around with asymptomatic transmission and rationally decide not to go to restaurant to ... Framing does a lot.
  - just-juan-post 6y ago
    > If people are responsible and won't go to restaurants See here's the thing: Just because you and others like you have a certain definition of "responsible" doesn't mean it should or does apply to everyone. Should we ban skydiving because it's irresponsible? Condom-less sex? This is about choice. Re-open and let people and businesses choose. Have a laugh with me tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXWhbUUE4ko
    - 666lumberjack 6y ago
      If it were possible to ensure everyone who would potentially be exposed to covid-19 as a result of your decision to engage in high-risk activities had given informed consent, I'd be fine with letting people decide for themselves. Since that isn't the case, your comparison is patently absurd. Skydiving isn't contagious.
    - piva00 6y ago
      No, this is about the common good, where personal choices might have a disproportionate impact unto others. I don't care if you don't care about getting infected or not, I do care if you get infected and spread that to others that don't hold your values. Society and populations don't work well with personal responsibility when their actions' impacts are too far removed from their personal sphere, if you kill someone 3rd hand because you infected someone who worked in a care facility: how are you going to know and act accordingly? This bullshit about personal freedoms and responsibility in the middle of a pandemic tells me more about the people who don't have a holistic view of society but this ideologue monologue about personal freedom, this is your value, this isn't how society work yet.
    - watwut 6y ago
- statop 6y ago
  This is a story about the ability of human kind to work together to defeat a common enemy. So far we have failed. The reasons for that failure are many, but it has become clear over this 6+ months that a coordinated top-down plan is what we’re lacking. The “libertarian” approach like you mentioned has been tried- every relaxation of covid restrictions has been followed by acceleration in the case count. Turns out prayers and positive thinking were unsuccessful in limiting virus transmission. Be honest Juan, when was the last time you really made your own decision anyhow?
- TomSwirly 6y ago
  Epidemiology is not accomplished by allowing people to make personal choices, because your average guy has no understanding of either epidemiology or statistics. As we have already seen, what actually happens is that a small number of people with vocal delusional beliefs do wildly risky things that endangers everyone else.
- zamadatix 6y ago
  Ignoring the whole "we should open/we should close" debate (I'm not an expert in economics or virology) it's perfectly possible for the vast majority of people to not want to go to bars/restaurants and to need to chose, as a group instead of individual, to close them to lower spread. I.e. >50% doesn't always have the same outcome as 100% People do get a choice in the matter but part of that is people get a choice whether they want to act independently or enforce a choice (to some level) as a group.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Most people advocating for reopening would kick restaurant employees off of unemployment. Those employees are the people in the equation with the least power, and the most exposed to the risk.
- loco5niner 6y ago
  > If people are scared and... You're framing this the wrong way. It's not about being scared, its about being careful.
twblalock 6y ago
I see no reason to believe this. Restaurants are pretty packed in the places that reopened, and they were pretty packed in NYC until literally the day the lockdowns started.
- MiroF 6y ago
  > Restaurants are pretty packed in the places that reopened Not true of where I live in San Francisco > they were pretty packed in NYC until literally the day the lockdowns started That's before people got scared because NYC was literally the first place for this to happen and most people had no idea what was going on. You can see how restaurants performed in countries that remained open, like Sweden, where you can find lots of people talking about how their sales dropped 80% despite no lockdown. For a low margin business, that kills.

ackbar03 6y ago

The onion was always ahead of their time. Also reflects what kind of world we live in

clairity 6y ago

nyc and other municipalities really bungled the categorization of risk. restaurants and bars shouldn't have been lumped together in the first place. most restaurants could have employed some modest measures and stayed open at 80-90% capacity (which may be below break-even for some, but probably enough to ride out the pandemic with price hikes and/or modest gov loans), as risk is isolated between tables (no, that one hypothesized case of down-blower transmission is not proof of significant risk) and you shouldn't be sharing breathing space with people you don't trust. people who would eat at a restaurant together likely ate together in private anyway when restaurants were shuttered. bars, on the other hand, by their very nature make it very difficult to contain transmission risk, because the whole point of a bar is to lower your guard to promote mixed socialization. distancing, talking gently, limiting respiratory ejections, and/or wearing a mask just don't go together with drinking and carousing. (private parties then likely became a primary transmission vector, but there's no way to stop private parties without truly draconian measures.) we could have let restaurants save themselves by remaining open, and tackled the remaining, more manageable issue of closed bars with supplemental programs.

daheza 6y ago
I feel like this might ignore that a good portion of restaurant sales are from the bar. Chilis, Applebees, to an extent BJs Restaurant. I feel only a few companies have adopted to the fact that you can deliver alcohol. There's no reason that those bar sales, can't be from the restaurant over postmates or uber eats.
- razius 6y ago
  You know the point of a bar is not the alcohol, right?
  - kevml 6y ago
    Well, it is. But not the only point.
- jlg23 6y ago
  > There's no reason that those bar sales, can't be from the restaurant over postmates or uber eats. Except for the prices, maybe? While it is true that most restaurants make most (or even all) of their profits with drinks, customers probably realize that they are paying 200% markup for a zero-effort service if they ordered beers from a restaurant instead of getting them themselves...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]