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While cities like Cambridge and Pittsfield take steps to suspend indoor dining, Gov. Charlie Baker said he had not seen data that would support a statewide shutdown of restaurant table service.
Pittsfield suspended table service and transitioned its schools to all-remote learning on Nov. 13, in response to what Mayor Linda Tyer characterized as an “alarming number of positive COVID-19 cases in our city.”
Cambridge’s City Council is slated to discuss on Monday evening a proposal that would direct the city manager to “confer with the Metro Mayor’s Association to close indoor dining, gyms, casinos and other non-essential indoor activities as soon as possible” and to set up a relief fund to support small businesses during a second shutdown.
Baker said his administration put out a statewide framework for business operations during the pandemic but supports individual communities’ ability to put tighter restrictions in place if local officials see a need.
“This is all consistent with what we would describe as giving locals the flexibility if they think there’s something in their community they need to deal with to go ahead and do that,” Baker said when asked about the measure under consideration in Cambridge. “If you’re a retailer and you have 20 sites in Massachusetts, I would like you to be able to play with the same set of rules in all 20 sites. I think it gets really complicated for them if they have to operate on a different set of rules in every community.”
