Gov. Cuomo Now Demanding Businesses Restrict Service to Vaccinated Customers Only
Don’t want to get the COVID-19 vaccine? That’s your choice, says Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo — just don’t expect to enter any businesses.
During a Monday media briefing, the embattled New York governor beseeched private business owners to adopt “vaccine-only admission,” telling them the policy would be “in your business interest.”
According to CNBC, Cuomo’s comments came on the same day he mandated vaccines for employees of the state’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Port Authority. Those who refuse to comply will be subject to weekly testing.
“Private businesses — I am asking them and suggesting to them: Go to vaccine-only admission,” Cuomo said.
“We did this. Radio City Music Hall, months ago. Reopened, vaccine-only. Sold out all the shows. Sports arenas — they went up to about 90 percent vaccine-only.”
Most private businesses aren’t Radio City Music Hall or sports venues, however. While the target audience of Tuesday’s Radio City show “One Last Time: An Evening with Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga” is a fairly limited one, the clientele of, say, a grocery store is a bit more broad.
If all businesses required vaccines for admission, it would be a de facto mandate.
“Private businesses, bars, restaurants — go to a vaccine-only admission,” Cuomo continued.
“I believe it’s in your business interest to run a vaccine-only establishment. … It’s going to help your business, not hurt it.”
NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo says private businesses, including stadiums and restaurants, should switch to “vaccine-only admission”
“If you say to people, ‘Well, if you don’t have a vaccine, you can’t get into these establishments,’ then you’ll see a real incentive to get vaccinated” pic.twitter.com/mQt6L7m4sH
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 2, 2021
“If you say to people, ‘Well, if you don’t have a vaccine, you can’t get into these establishments,’ then you’ll see a real incentive to get vaccinated,” Cuomo said.
Buffalo-area restaurant managers didn’t believe it would be in their business interest to run a “vaccine-only establishment.”
Todd Burdick, general manager of Jim’s Steakout, told Spectrum News his restaurant had been suffering “for over a year, through this whole pandemic.”
“And if we go that route, there are certain people that don’t want to be vaccinated right now,” Burdick said. “That’s just going to take money away and it’s going to kill businesses.”
Burdick told Spectrum he didn’t think his business could afford to require vaccines.
“I think that if he recommends this and business owners go through with it, it’s probably going to take 33 percent to 40 percent of the business away,” he said.
So who exactly is expressing support for this?
The leftist social media hype team, which is back to embracing Cuomo after he went through a rough patch involving COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes and a spate of sexual harassment allegations.
Vaccinated people are the only people opening up this country.
When vaccinated people go into any business and don’t request everyone is vaccinated or wearing a mask, they are contributing to their plague.
— Bruce (@1basp1) August 2, 2021
Agree! It’s time we stop letting the unvaccinated hold us hostage.
— Cha Posz (@chaposz1) August 2, 2021
Exactly, why should I be exposed to some unvaccinated covidiot and their contamination. I’m fully vaccinated and I refuse to become infected because of someone else’s irresponsible behavior.
— Carlos Castro (@CarlosCastro071) August 2, 2021
We’ve been reliably informed that vaccines prevent serious illness from the delta variant and that the current uptick in COVID-19 cases is a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” If these people are still worried, no one is stopping them from making decisions about their own health.
Instead, what they and Cuomo want to do is make decisions about other people’s health.
A private business is perfectly within its rights to refuse service to the unvaccinated. But it’s another issue entirely when a governor pushes private vaccine mandates from the bully pulpit in a tone that makes them seem like a bit more than a suggestion.
Nice restaurant, Cuomo seems to be saying. Good to see that it’s open again. It’d be a shame if anything were to… happen to it.
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