Arlington City Council Approves Updated Disaster Declaration, Including Capacity Restrictions for Restaurants and Bars
By Office of Communication
Posted on March 17, 2020, March 17, 2020

The Arlington City Council approved a number of modifications to the City’s coronavirus disaster declaration, which will now be in place indefinitely.

Upon the recommendation of the City’s Public Health Authority, the City of Arlington’s Fire Department and Tarrant County Public Health, the Arlington City Council approved a number of modifications to the City’s coronavirus disaster declaration, which will now be in place indefinitely.

These modifications, which went into effect immediately, were approved during the evening Arlington City Council meeting on Tuesday, March 17, 2020.

The updated disaster declaration will require the enforcement of the following restrictions by the City’s Fire Marshal:

• Restaurants and bars will be required to limit capacity to 125 people or less.
• Restaurants and bars with a maximum capacity of less than 125 people will be required to reduce to 50% of that capacity.

In response to the developing coronavirus pandemic, emergency and disaster declarations were declared at the federal, state and county level on Friday. Following those declarations, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams originally signed a disaster declaration for the City of Arlington on March 13, 2020.

The City has enacted these modifications of the disaster declaration to help ensure good health, decrease the potential impacts of COVID-19, and to prevent its exposure to vulnerable populations.

“While we know these measures will create some hardships for some individual businesses, I want to assure everyone that we are implementing this plan with the public’s health top of mind,” said Fire Chief Don Crowson. “Everything we are doing comes with the recommendation of local, state and federal health officials with the desire to protect our community and prevent the spread of this virus. The Arlington Fire Department’s Fire Marshals will visit establishments to ensure public health standards are being met.”

The City of Arlington has created a coronavirus website that offers prevention tips, information about what Arlington and Tarrant County are doing to stay up-to-date, the latest news from the CDC and more.

The City’s Public Health Authority and its Office of Emergency Management is communicating closely with Tarrant County Public Health, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the CDC, the Arlington medical community and other partners to monitor and stay up-to-date on this developing situation. Tarrant County has established a coronavirus hotline at 817-248-6299.

Although the coronavirus is a new virus that is spreading globally, we encourage all residents to read “Remember the 3 Cs” for more information about stopping the spread of cold and flu:

English version
Spanish version
Vietnamese version
Arabic version
Mandarin Chinese version

Click here see Arlington’s full Declaration of Local State of Disaster.

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