CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolinians will need to wait a little longer for life to return back to normal as Governor Roy Cooper has extended the modified stay at home order until the end of February. Though the state has been seeing improvements in the COVID-19 case numbers, the governor said it just isn’t enough.
The order, which put in place a 10 p.m. curfew, has worked in ordinarily popular places for nightlife.
"Uptown just has not been the same," Sunkul Soni, the owner of the Taproom Social, said. "It's been a ghost town."
Soni said his business had only been open for nine months before the pandemic, but it was booming.
"It was definitely lively, it was a great time," Soni said.
He said then came the curfews.
"With the 9 o'clock curfew we get busier at like 7:30," Soni said. "Folks kind of come out almost an hour or an hour and a half before we have to close."
Graham St. Bar co-owner Amit Patel says since the curfew sales are down 50% on weekends and 70% on weekdays. Patel said he hoped the curfew would at least have been extended back to 11 p.m. for the sake of sales and his employees' ability to make good money.
Soni noted the curfews come on top of a year full of missed opportunities.
"St. Patrick's Day, baseball, Cinco de Mayo, so many events we had lined up in the calendar, the ACC Championship, we just missed out on all of it," Soni said.
Just as the governor's executive order was set to expire on Friday, Cooper announced Wednesday the curfew would be extended because of our COVID-19 cases.
"It's good to see our numbers are decreasing and stabilizing as she said they remain too high," Cooper said.
The modified stay-at-home order will now run through Feb. 28.
"That means the 10 p.m. curfew is still in place, as are the mask mandates, mass gathering limits, and capacity limits for businesses and retail," Cooper confirmed.
Soni said it's unfortunate for businesses who are doing the right thing, but it's better now than later.
"At the end of the day, January and February are the worst months for restaurant bars in general because everyone's trying to be healthy and not drink," Soni said, "but come March, April, May, I'd much rather us be back to normal.
To allow businesses to continue to make extra money, Cooper also extended delivery and to-go sales for mixed drinks until March 31.