Diners eat in a bubble at Kramers in December.

Elvert Barnes / Flickr

Indoor dining and museums will close for three weeks in D.C. starting on Dec. 23, under a new order by Mayor Muriel Bowser.

It requires libraries to close as well, restricting service to curbside pick-up and drop-off only. The order also suspends the D.C. Circulator route along the National Mall, and extends the city’s public health emergency to March 31.

Issued Friday night, the ban will go into effect from 10 p.m. on Dec. 23 until 5 a.m. on Jan. 15.

The news comes just before Christmas, as the city’s COVID-19 tracker continues to show a high daily case rate, with more than 35 new cases each day per 100,000 people.

Barred in DC first tweeted news of the new restrictions on Friday morning, which was confirmed by Washington City Paper. City officials plan to reopen indoor dining in a limited capacity in January, City Paper reports.

D.C. would join Montgomery County, Prince George’s County, and Baltimore City, which have already banned indoor dining temporarily.

In some jurisdictions, plans to halt indoor dining have been met with pushback. A Maryland judge temporarily blocked an order that would have banned indoor dining in Anne Arundel County earlier this week. The Restaurant Association of Maryland held a press conference Friday to call on legal intervention for indoor dining to be reopened. The group filed requests for temporary restraining orders and preliminary injunctions against the Maryland jurisdictions that have banned indoor dining.

Some restaurants have turned to outdoor bubbles to continue welcoming diners as the weather gets colder.

Bowser has tightened other restrictions in the last several weeks, limiting indoor gathering sizes to 10, down from 50, and outdoor gatherings to 25 people. She also restricted group exercise classes and banned restaurant alcohol sales after 10 p.m. At the time she announced the restrictions last month, Bowser also said she would restrict indoor dining, lowering the cap on patrons from 50% to 25%, starting Dec. 14. The mayor said the delay was put in place to give restaurants time to adjust their operations.

Kathy E. Hollinger, president and CEO of the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington, told DCist in a statement that the timing of the rollback is not ideal, given that people tend to dine out and celebrate around the holidays.

“In all our conversations with [local health] leaders, we push back in all the ways we can,” she said. “We continue to advocate on behalf of restaurants and insist that any rollbacks or guidance that impact restaurants’ operations are rooted in clear science.”

She continued, “This is not an easy decision to make, nor is it easy for us to advise our industry to rollback operations going into the holidays. In the big picture, it’s not beneficial to keep rolling forward to then keep rolling back.” In the absence of indoor dining, Hollinger encouraged getting food from local restaurants to eat at home.

Local residents and industry workers shared a variety of reactions:

https://twitter.com/zac_hoffman/status/1339974927185752067

https://twitter.com/HeatherWeaverDC/status/1339986160790212610

This story has been updated with reactions to the news and additional information, and to include a statement from Kathy E. Hollinger.

Filed Under: bowser, coronavirus restrictions, covid19, indoor dining,