Board of Aldermen 12-22-2020 Page 33
aunts, uncles, grandparents and while it is a problem economically that we are not supporting businesses
and restaurants anymore with things like the Payroll Protection Act and that kind of stuff, it’s also a problem
if they have to go and pay medical bills. Or if their restaurant is shut down for a week, two weeks, three
weeks because of an outbreak or if we have a full outbreak and a lockdown. Several people have said, you
know maybe what we really need to do is close restaurants down entirely. That is not what the Board of
Health is trying to do. They are deliberately trying to slow the spread, not stop the spread and | don’t
understand how those two arguments go together, that you’d be crippling businesses but it would be better
to shut the whole thing down.
So | am getting the sense that people are so passionate about protecting restaurants that they are not open
to other options. | know several Aldermen have said that they plan to submit Legislation to enhance the
mask ordinance, | don’t know where you were months ago but we could have used that for a plan for the
fall in September, October, November. As far as | know though, the issue isn’t necessarily with the
ordinance and | don’t even know that it is with the Police because they are not coming forward and saying
this is unenforceable, this can’t be done. Everybody here who says, I’ve seen a place that’s open and they
are not masking; or I’ve seen a place — you are part of the problem. You can’t just watch somebody walk
around without a mask or watch a business, as an Aldermen you cannot receive a complaint about a
business that’s operating inappropriately and not do something. So | assume everybody who is saying that
they are seeing these activities taking place is doing something about it. | assume that all of the restaurant
industry people who are saying, you know, we are going to do our best, we are going to make sure that we
are obeying all of the precautions are taking that home because you can’t go to your friend’s bar and hang
out with the other people from other restaurants while claiming you are keeping your own restaurant safe,
because you are not. You are all still occupying the same place and that’s where cross exposure is likely to
happen.
Restaurant workers are a high percentage of people who have tested positive in restaurants. They are
secondary contacts are often their neighbors, their relatives, other people that they see and have no idea
that they are positive because this is characterized by asymptomatic spread. | don’t think there’s a group of
bad actors in Nashua that are deliberately spreading COVID and trying to do this on purpose, because to
do that you have to get COVID. | think that there may be a number of people based on what the Board of
Health are seeing that are not compliant and are not making adjustments and changes in areas that they
need to be. But we are not listening to the Board of Health as to who they are, we are just speculating
here. And we are imagining that certain places must be responsible but not the ones that are present here
and that’s arbitrary.
| think if we want to empower Public Health to do more, than we should do it immediately and | think if we
want to empower restaurants to do more in terms of protections then we need to make tangible
contributions to that as a City. And | don’t think we can just say, well Legislation is pending and this is a
problem for Washington. This is a City that we draw revenue for, we should be looking at how we are
spending our money and where we are making discretionary choices for studies or development projects or
that kind of stuff and we should be making concrete plans with our upcoming budget to say, OK, we need
to make sure that if a restaurant is COVID positive has to close that we are supporting them during that
closure or we are doing something to make sure that their staff aren’t being unduly affected. Because staff
aren't responsible for the decisions that an owner or a manager is making. And a lot of times they have as
little power as anybody who is being told by their managers right now that their business is going to close if
pass this ordinance. They are all in the same boat in terms of being forced to work, forced to expose
themselves to risk and not having any safety net or recourse.
So if there is really this genuine sentiment that we are going to do stuff to help these restaurants, then we
need to. Because more than likely, based on what Public Health is saying and what the Board of Health is
saying, this is not going to go away because we voted it away. We are going to continue to see outbreak
surges, they are going to get worse over Christmas and over New Years in spite of all the well wishes of
everybody on the Board who are saying, we really hope it doesn’t happen. It’s going to get worse, this issue
is going to come up again and whether we have to face it because a curfew is even obviously necessary or
because a full lockdown is necessary, we need to be prepared.
