Ocean City Hotel Motel Restaurant Association calls for reopening dine in service

OCEAN CITY, Md. – The Ocean City Hotel Motel Restaurant Association is making a public plea to Maryland Governor Larry Hogan to allow restaurants to open for indoor dining. They say that many precautions are being taken by restaurants, including considering seating arrangements. “A lot of our operators have gone to great lengths to make sure that there are physical barriers between booths. So, people have put up Plexiglas in between booths and now if you read the state guidelines the state says you have to sit every other booth,” said executive director Susan Jones.

In a Facebook post, they thanked the governor for allowing outdoor seating, but say that it isn’t enough for restaurants to survive. The post reads in part, “While the economy is in the midst of a RECESSION, the travel industry is in a DEPRESSION.”

The association also said that some restaurants don’t have the space for outdoor seating, and not enough time to plan for reopening dine in service. “You have to order food. Sysco, Holt, Wagner – all the food suppliers have to call their suppliers to be able to get the food into the warehouse, to be ordered by the restaurants, to be delivered to the restaurants. That doesn’t happen overnight, and that doesn’t happen in two days,” said Jones

Jones says that all they want is more guidance, and that restaurants need to be able to do more business. “They might have 10% or 20% of capacity that they would have inside, so they’re still given a little teeny tiny window the make some income, but it certainly isn’t the window of ‘I’m going to have a season like I thought I would have,'” said Jones.

Jones also says that taxes collected from Ocean City restaurants will likely be lower this season, and that could impact the county and state as a whole. She encourages people to support restaurants if they can.

You can read the full Facebook post here.