Coral Ortiz Photo
Khalil Alsankary at Chap's: Will be "hard to keep going."
After struggling to survive a Covid-clobbered holiday, owners of downtown restaurants learned they may see little relief when Yalies return to town.
That’s because under a policy announced Tuesday, Yale is requiring all undergraduate students returning this month to quarantine — including an order for even off-campus students to avoid stepping inside “local businesses, restaurants, and bars” at least through Feb. 7.
Khalil Alsankary, who owns Chap’s Grille on Chapel Street, hadn’t known about the order until a reporter informed him of it on Wednesday. He was shocked.
“It’s going to be hard for us to us keep going with this new quarantine restriction,” he said.
Sabri Gabril at work at Est Est Est.
Next door, Est Est Est Pizza & Restaurant owner Sabri Gabril was also disturbed to hear the news. Yale students make up 80 percent of his business, he estimated. Losing that business will make it even harder during this latest stretch of the pandemic, he said.
He and other business owners with Yale clientele questioned why Yale didn’t consult them on the decision, especially since Yale owns much of the commercial property downtown.
The surge in Covid-19 cases with the Omicron variant has hurt business enough that Tomatillo has already had to cut employees’ hours significantly, according to manager Mark Boules. The Mexican restaurant rents its space at Elm and Park streets from Yale.
“They’re serious about their money, but they don’t care about businesses that are barely surviving,” said Boules.
Anchor Spa's Raasikh Muhammad Joseph: Yalies are vaccinated, so government rules suffice.
The latest Covid upsurge has already turned the center of the city into a “ghost town,” Raasikh Muhammad Joseph, general manager of Anchor Spa, located in a Yale-owned space on College Street. Joseph noted that Yale requires students and staff to be vaccinated, so he wondered why it needs stricter protocols than those instituted by the city and state. The city has an indoor mask mandate in place.
Details of the quarantine were emailed to undergraduate students this week by Yale College Dean of Student Affairs Melanie Boyd. Yale spokeswoman Karen Peart noted that the rules about patronizing local businesses are part of a broader citywide quarantine. She also noted that students may order curbside pickups from local restaurants.
“All dining will be grab and go whether on campus or off,” Peart stated.
“Our priority is the health and well-being of everyone on campus and those in our surrounding community.”
In a follow-up email, Peart clarified that these quarantine rules apply to Yale College undergraduate students only. She said that graduate students have been asked to test before and after traveling to campus if they left New Haven during break.
And Boyd provided further explanation for why Yale has put the quarantine rules in place for undergrads. “The temporary campus quarantine, like previous similar ones, is meant to limit the potential spread of infection during the period in which students will be returning to campus from locations around the world,” she said. “Many students wanted to take precautionary measures before returning home to limit their family members’ exposure. The same reasoning applies here in reducing the chances of returning students inadvertently exposing the New Haven community to the virus. My hope is that the quarantine can be lifted on February 7 as planned, once it has served its purpose and enabled the public health advisers to evaluate the conditions after the students’ return. Until then, students are welcome to use curbside pickup and delivery services from local restaurants and other businesses.”
General Manager Tnasia Brown at Atticus.
Restaurants are seeking to make up for business lost to Covid through creativity. Anchor Spa is “leaning on cocktail kits programs and engaging things from afar” once again, just as during the previous surges, said Joseph. Atticus Bookstore and Cafe on Chapel is pivoting to curbside pick-up and making their food “as accessible for students as possible,” said General Manager Tnasia Brown.
This new policy by Yale will be a death sentence to area businesses that have depended on college students for their income during COVID. With local employers having employees work remote, they have lost the business lunch and happy hour crowd. With suburbanites avoiding the city due to lack of parking and crime, the retailers and food and beverage establishments can’t survive on only the few city residents who can afford to patronize their business. They need the area college students income income to survive. If the colleges require their students and staff to be fully vaccinated and boosted, and to wear their masks, then at least outdoor dining should be encouraged as well as take out, and retailers other than food and beverage (which require you to take off your mask to consume,) should not be restricted.