COLUMBUS, Ohio — Governor Mike DeWine announced Monday that there would be consequences for bars and restaurants that do not comply with the latest health directives from the state.
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Local health departments and the Ohio Investigative Unit, a division of the Ohio Department of Public Safety that handles liquor enforcement, will be keeping watch on these establishments to ensure they're following the rules.
At Monday's press briefing, Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted said enforcement would be the last resort.
"But if you can't comply and if you won't comply, and if you won't keep people safe, your customers and your employees, then there has to be enforcement," Husted said, speaking about restaurants and bars.
The Cuyahoga County Board of Health monitors all of the county except for the city of Cleveland. It received four complaints over the weekend that it plans to investigate.
Kevin Brennan, CCBH's communications officer, said the department would follow a complaint-driven process.
People with complaints about restaurants in the county outside of Cleveland can call CCBH's call center Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at (216) 201-2000.
"You can let us know what the nature of your complaint is, and then within likely 48 hours or so, we will attempt to make contact with the location and we’ll investigate the complaint," Brennan said.
Brennan said CCBH would first try to reach the owner or manager by phone, going out to the physical location if necessary. That's similar to the practice CCBH implemented when investigating complaints of non-essential businesses remaining open.
"We don’t want to take action based solely on what we would hear from a complainant," Brennan said. "We want to make sure that we give the owner-operator the opportunity to talk through the situation with us."
Brennan said CCBH also wants to make sure there is clarity on both sides, from understanding any possible limitations that the owner-operator may have, to making sure establishments understand the mandates and best practices handed down by the state. In addition to COVID-19-related guidelines, Brennan said restaurants and bars should also be following typical food safety practices.
To get to the point where a license might be pulled, Brennan said, "hypothetically speaking, the two things that would trigger us would be just repeated violations without any attempt at compliance" or an imminent threat to public health.
"We just want to make sure that we’re making some progress with people," Brennan said. "They’re taking the steps necessary to comply. But if we see just a real refusal to comply or the inability to comply, and then we just see repeated violations, then again, we may have to take that extreme step of pulling somebody’s license."
Brennan said he believes businesses, bars and restaurants want to do the right thing.
"I think that it’s just a period of adjustment," he said. "I think much like the non-essential/essential business piece was, after about a week or two, we felt like things started to settle out quite a bit and we got greater compliance as time went on, and I think that this may follow the same pattern. I think that it’s just everybody’s trying to get used to what the right thing to do is, how to control things, maybe the amount of staff that they might need to ensure proper controls."
The other enforcement arm is the Ohio Investigative Unit (OIU), which deals with liquor enforcement, as well as a variety of other areas including food stamps, tobacco and gambling.
"We’re going to start looking for locations that are open and operating, not in compliance with the governor and health director’s mandates," said Agent-in-Charge Greg Croft of the OIU's Cleveland Office.
Croft, who is also president of the National Liquor Law Enforcement Association, said OIU agents, who are peace officers, may issue administrative citations against a bar or restaurant's liquor permit. They can also issue criminal citations to whoever is in charge of the establishment at the time.
Administrative citations against the location's liquor permit would go to the state's Liquor Control Commission, where there would be a hearing scheduled for sometime in the future. Criminal citations will be issued in whichever jurisdiction the violation takes place.
Croft said it's up to local prosecutors to decide if the charges are relevant or not, but that OIU agents would issue citations based on their observations of violations of the health order.
He said that patrons could also potentially be cited, although he emphasized that wasn't OIU's intention.
"This is about everybody’s safety and making sure everybody’s in compliance so we can get the state opened back up," Croft said.
If you have a concern or complaint about a violation, you can call your local health department or local law enforcement, or contact the OIU Cleveland field office: (216) 898-1870.
