Board of Aldermen 12-22-2020 Page 32
President Wilshire
Alderman Gathright.
Alderman Harriott-Gathright
| just want to thank everyone you see so many phone calls, and I’ve talked with people dearly about what
their feelings about the — most of those that called me personally were against the curfew. But! also had
several calls where they were for the curfew and I’ve had just as many against and for in terms of emails
and personal emails and personal calls. Like everyone else, this is a very difficult decision. One day | am
feeling this way and the next day | am feeling another way. So tonight | will have to make up my mind. |
want to say that | don’t think that any of us in any form really wants to hurt anyone in the Entertainment
Restaurant or any of that type business.
| do realize and | think most of us realize that there’s a lot more to be done in Nashua in terms of helping to
get the numbers down. One of the things that | feel very strongly about is enforcement. And not just Police
enforcement but also Health Department enforcement, because if we can shut down a place because of
the cleanliness, then we should be able to, since it’s a law now, we should be able to shut down a place if
they are not abiding by the law. And that works in both ways. So | still don’t know where | am right now,
but | am going to say that | am going to go with the Health Department who | think has done a fantastic job
and | just pray that it is not a long-term curfew. Thank you.
President Wilshire
Thank you Alderman Gathright. Anyone else on the Board that has not spoken yet that wants to? Ok
Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
Thanks. | just wanted to reiterate again that the 9:30 curfew is not arbitrary, the objection to it is arbitrary to
be honest, because if it was at 9:30 if it was 10:00 there’s no point where the restaurant industry would be
like, “oh yea go ahead reduce our resources”. Because what they are presenting to us that even just a
small impact on their business is not something that they can absorb and that this isn’t small, this is a
significant amount of money. Now there’s a lot of contradiction there because people are saying, this is
when we make our money, this is our revenue, but they are also saying, well we are not doing a lot of
business it’s practically a ghost town.
There is the capacity rate for restaurants so | don’t think that they are necessarily making a lot of money
from a lot of different people, but | do think that those individuals are likely much more higher risk. While it
may not be apparent from a behaviorist perspective, to some people that people behave differently at night.
I’ve seen it, I’ve seen plenty of people that will be much more likely to drink, socialize, go home with
somebody. They aren't really doing that at 1:00 or 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, | don’t even think there’s a
karaoke night or a trivia night that happens that early. It’s in the evening and that’s basically a function of
when people get off work or when they are used to it, you know, having the free time to do it, that’s when
they go. | don’t know that the restaurant industry can change that behavior and so | am conscious of the
fact that they are going to be asymmetrically impacted by this. But it was referred to as “unfair” earlier and
it can be unfair but definitely a problem. Gravity is unfair to some people, | mean the illness is unfair to
people. You can earn a lifetime syndrome where you may think you’re recovered but you have scarring on
your heart, on your lungs. | am mindful of the CIA Officer who had his legs amputated.
People are assuming that COVID-19 if you’re young you can get it, you'll be fine. No, if you’re young and
you get it, you are not necessarily fine at all. We know that children can get it and suffer horribly and we
know that it can stick with you. No one has managed to cure or recognize or develop a way to resolve the
damage that it does over the long term. And more importantly you can’t always control the secondary and
tertiary contacts that you have. That’s how it’s getting into long term care facilities, that’s how it’s getting to
