Gov. Walz Orders Bars and Restaurants Across Minnesota to Close to Dine-In Customers

ST. PAUL, Minn. (FOX 9)-Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has ordered bars and restaurants to close to dine-in customers by 5 p.m. Tuesday and continue indefinitely, a move Walz said was necessary to control the spread of coronavirus.

The order also closes theaters, museums, fitness centers and community clubs across the state.

The governor announced the changes at a Monday evening news conference at the state Capitol. State health officials said earlier in the day that they were in talks with the governor about how to carry out the plan, which will allow bars and restaurants to have curbside take-out service.

Many bars and restaurants across the Twin Cities have already closed or scaled back to carryout service. The governors of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and other states have already made similar changes.

The full list of businesses affected by this rule:

1. Restaurants, food courts, cafes, coffeehouses, and other places of public accommodation offering food or beverage for on-premises consumption. This excludes institutional and in-house food cafeterias for businesses, hospitals, and long-term care facilities;
2. Bars, taverns, brew pubs, breweries, microbreweries, distilleries, wineries, tasting rooms, clubs, and other places of public accommodation that offer alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption;
3. Hookah bars, cigar bars, and vaping lounges offering their products for on-premises consumption;
4. Theaters, cinemas, museums, and indoor and outdoor performance venues;
5. Gymnasiums, fitness centers, recreation centers, indoors sports facilities, indoor exercise facilities, exercise studios, and spas;
6. Amusement parks, arcades, bingo halls, bowling alleys, indoor climbing facilities, skating rinks, trampoline parks, and other similar recreational or entertainment facilities;
7. Facilities of country clubs, golf clubs, boating or yacht clubs, sports or athletic clubs, and dining clubs.