On Saturday, in a move supported by Cantrell, Gov. John Bel Edwards issued new restrictions. Edwards’ order doesn’t close bars completely. But it restricts them to takeout service or delivery. Bar operators contacted Monday were treating it as a shutdown order, however.
Mark Schettler, bartender and general manager of Bar Tonique, a “craft cocktail dive” on Rampart Street at the edge of the French Quarter, said the new restrictions, coupled with state law, appear to limit his sales to packaged liquor and beer and frozen daiquiris. “A bar like mine, that doesn’t help us,” he said. “Who the hell’s going to come buy a six-pack of beer from Tonique?”
It would make little sense to offer only takeout and delivery from Bruno’s Tavern, a neighborhood bar and grill in New Orleans’ Carrollton area that has been operating since the 1930s, said general manager Will Wilson.
“We could stay open but we’d be bleeding money,” Wilson said.
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