Hattiesburg Mayor Toby Barker announced Monday that he will sign an executive order allowing restaurants within the city limits to reopen for outdoor dining beginning Thursday.
Barker said the decision to reopen outdoor dining came after studying the five-day averages of new COVID-19 cases over the weekend.
“We saw a leveling off and a little bit of a drop,” he said. “Some of that is because it was the weekend, but there were reasonably significant drops,” he said.
Under the new order, restaurants must limit customers to 50 percent of their outdoor seating capacity. Restaurants must close by 10 p.m. and meet all social distancing minimums, cleaning and sanitation standards, and employee and customer COVID-19 screening requirements as ordered by Gov. Tate Reeves.
Restaurants without outdoor dining spaces may convert parking spaces to outdoor dining areas, but they cannot serve more than 50 percent of their indoor capacity. These restaurants must mark off outdoor dining areas clearly and ensured continued traffic flow, and ADA access must not be prohibited.
According to an email from Chief Communications Officer Samantha McCain, the new order will be signed Wednesday and will go into effect at 8 a.m. Thursday.
“Today’s notice was to allow restaurants the time needed to prepare for opening,” she said.
The governor issued Executive Order 1478, which allowed restaurants and bars to resume indoor and outdoor dining with some restrictions, on May 4, but Barker announced on May 6 that those establishments in Hattiesburg must remain closed.
Barker said at the time that a surge in positive of COVID-19 cases was the reason behind his decision.
