ATLANTA (Reuters) – Georgia on Monday allowed residents to dine at restaurants for the first time in a month, as more U.S. states began easing restrictions where the coronavirus outbreak has taken a relatively light toll.
An employee bags up an order right before closing at a Waffle House on the day restaurants and theaters were allowed to reopen to the public as part of the phased reopening of businesses and restaurants from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) restrictions in Smyrna, Georgia, U.S. April 27, 2020. REUTERS/Elijah Nouvelage
Keen to revive their battered economies despite the warnings of health experts, a handful of states from Montana to Mississippi were also set to reopen some businesses deemed to be nonessential.
Alaska, Oklahoma and South Carolina, along with Georgia, previously took such steps, after weeks of mandatory lockdowns that threw millions of Americans out of work.
President Donald Trump and some local officials had criticized Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for orders that enabled restaurants and theaters to join a list of businesses, such as hair and nail salons, barber shops and tattoo parlors, allowed to reopen last week, with social-distancing restrictions still in force.
Even so, some restaurant owners and managers in the state capital Atlanta said they would not reopen on Monday.
“I have a daughter and I want to be around for her,” Steve Pitts, general manager of Manuel’s Tavern, a fixture for more than 60 years, told Reuters.
In the hardest-hit states of New York and New Jersey, part of a metropolitan region of about 32 million people, governors signaled that even limited restarting of business activities was at least weeks away.
Even though Kemp has allowed movie theaters to reopen, three major chains – AMC,