New World Order in Anchorage dining scene: No live music or dancing

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Mayor Ethan Berkowitz is expected to change the rules for Anchorage once again, starting Sept. 1, according to released documents by the Downtown Partnership.

There will be no live music or dancing allowed in public places in Anchorage, and those restaurants that are still in business will be allowed to open at 50 percent capacity, but diners must wear masks until they are eating. No one will be allowed to stand at a bar where food or alcohol is being served; instead, they will need to take a seat. Groups at restaurants and bars may not mix with other groups. Six foot distancing is required at all times, with tables no closer than 10 feet.

All these measures and others are part of the Berkowitz plan to limit the spread of COVID-19 in Anchorage, as revealed in a notice from the Downtown Partnership.

Anchorage restaurants and bars have been closed by the mayor for the better part of five months. For about 70 days during that period, they were allowed to operate at a diminished capacity.

From May 11 until July 22, the mayor allowed them to open at 50 percent capacity with stringent rules for numbers of patrons and sanitation. From July 22 until Aug. 3, the capacity was cut to 25 percent for bars, and was 50 percent for restaurants. Since Aug. 3, no indoor dining or serving has been allowed in Anchorage. Several restaurants have closed permanently due to the uncertainty of the Berkowitz regime.

25 case of COVID-19 were diagnosed during the most recent 24-hour reporting period in Anchorage.

122 COMMENTS

  1. Just more evidence, as if we needed it, of just how crazy the mayor’s office and the Anchorage Assembly has become….

    • Do you realize that these orders are temporary, and that the mayor will eliminate them when circumstances permit? This is hardly the establishment of a “New World Order.” This is an attempt to gain control of the SARS-CoV-2 now that it is surging out of control once again, following misbehavior by hundreds after the initial orders were canceled.
      The mayor is not to blame for this. The scoffers are the problem.

      • Do you mean the DemPanic that is less lethal than the flu? Living in fear is destroying our city and our nation. These are not just businesses that are closing; these are people’s lives and livelihoods…forever gone… The mayor is slowly starving familie; because he either will not open the city or, by not using the CARES funds to help the starving citizen and struggling businesses it was intended for.

      • You’re kidding, right? The CDC said a week ago masks are not making much of a difference if any at all. Wake up. Misbehavior is for children not adults. Grow a pair. I had this an it was nothing.

      • I totally agree. But again Suzanne Downing is not a journalist. She is an apologist for the Republican Party in Alaska. Her use of “New World Order” is a reference to a conspiracy theory that the world is under the control of a few very wealthy families – much beyond the normal reference to Soros, etc.

        Berkowitz is handling a fine line between keeping cases low and keeping businesses open. We were doing really well until the fisheries imported lower 48 employees without doing enough testing.

        And the Valley is so proud of their non mask stance. An acquaintance of mine hosted a homeowners annual meeting and referred to me (to my face) as living in “Los Anchorage.”

      • Is that why we keep hearing that this is the new normal ?
        Not in my world ! I will not live in fear. I will not bow to anyone but God. I will not wear a mask that actually hurts my body. I will stand for the flag. I will not judge others by the color of their skin but by their character. I will not condone making laws of voting that will make it easier to cheat another person out of their vote. I will protest peacefully. I will not steal kill or destroy another person or properties because I appose the situations I perceive to be wrong.
        I believe every American voice should be heard. I will fight for America from foreign and domestic enemies. I will honor all those that have given their lives and fought to keep America free.

        • They need to address that there are certain conditions where some people can’t wear the mask. I have claustrophobia and PTSD from a rape. I get very panicked when I have anything over my face. I try wearing a mask, but if I have it on over 20 minutes it has to be taken off. I’m wearing a mask with my nose showing and it helps me to keep it on a little longer. We need to quit judging people who don’t wear masks until you know what they have been through in life.

  2. “A megalomaniac is a pathological egotist, that is, someone with a psychological disorder with symptoms like delusions of grandeur and an obsession with power. We also use the word megalomaniac more informally for people who behave as if they’re convinced of their absolute power and greatness. Your garden-variety egomaniac might be self-centered and overconfident but he’s a little softy compared with the megalomaniac who wants to control the world.”

    From Mayo Clinic, “Narcissistic personality disorder — one of several types of personality disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of extreme confidence lies a fragile self-esteem that’s vulnerable to the slightest criticism.”

    • I worked for a narcissist – and it isn’t fun. They stop at absolutely nothing. Unless something is THEIR idea, get out of the way.

    • You may not be too far off ?. May account for the mayor practically sobbing during the press release when he was chastising those ‘mean’ restaurants for not caring for other people’, yadda, yadda, sob….. it did indeed appear he was sooo grievously offended by having someone actually not bow to his power trip whim. And what about the thousands that have lost jobs, the homes likely be foreclosed on, vehicles too? Add to that it is no wonder crime is increasing as the private sector is being gutted.

        • Biden has been a moderate most of his life and I think he’ll resist the extreme elements of that party if elected.

          • Ha ha ha ha ha ha! For all his life Biden has been a political opportunist standing for nothing except enriching himself and his family. He has never had an original thought, often directly plagiarizing from liberal or conservative as meets his immediate need. He stands for nothing, representing the very worst of politics in the US today.

      • You mean presidential candidate Biden don’t you? I don’t see President Trump crying around like Berkowitz.
        Get your facts straight.

  3. The mayor is a friggin criminal. He isn’t going to stop the spread of anything except the BS he is spreading about any positive effect of the spread of an airborne VIRUS by killing peoples’ businesses. The guy is deluded beyond anybody I have ever seen in public office, except maybe Fauci.

    • No dancing between committed couples? Does the mayor want to voyeur into people’s bedrooms too? The sickness is not COVID. It’s the will to control people. Dominion over others lives is the goal of a dictator.

    • He’s not deluded. He knows exactly what he needs to do to destroy the economy and increase his power over the people. A tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.

  4. The people who are complying with Berkowitz’ tyrannical orders are complicit in the communist takeover. Stop going along with it. If we aren’t willing to resist this, we deserve to lose our country.

    • Exactly! Thank you, Charlotte. My thoughts exactly. Become a Peaceful Protester. Stop being complicit with that which you know is evil. If you wear the face muzzle or comply with the lie an arbitrary six-foot space will keep you “safe” and “healthy” from a virus with a 99.96% recovery rate, then you are part of the problem.

    • Walk me through your thought process on this. How does wearing masks and socially distancing result in losing our country?

      • Reference wearing masks:

        1. It gives a false expectation of safety, encouraging people to congregate which they wouldn’t do without masks.
        2. It conditions the public to expect government to do the thinking for them, thereby inverting the initial premise for constitutional government, i.e. government derived it’s original power from the will of the people.

        • So you want our country to be more like Brazil than like New Zealand, South Korea and others that are following masking, distancing and periodic shutdowns which have resulted in far fewer deaths and a controlled virus. Your ignorance is profound and embarrassing.

  5. Napoleon Berkowitz will release his chokehold after the presidential election when, regardless who wins, democrat governors and mayors will cease sabotaging the economy…..

    • Why would the Communists cease sabotaging the economy??? It’s been way too easy and convenient using a virus as a pretext to destroy and take-over America. If you understand the Communist agenda, you know this will not stop after the election.

  6. Good luck enforcing those rules, come Sept 1st i’ll be enjoying a cold beverage and a hot meal with my neighbors and friends at my local restaurant and there is nothing that Berky and his brown shirts can do about it.

    • Though, the bully will try to intimidate restaurant owners who don’t enforce his arbitrary edicts with threats of fines and removal of business licenses, if enough people refuse to comply, his bully tactics will fail. United we stand. If business owners don’t fight the bully now, he will not stop until they are bankrupt anyway.

  7. I warned you people time and time again, if you didn’t mask up and social distance and act responsibly whether you believed it was necessary or not, this day was coming. All you did was supply the mayor with the ammunition that he needed. You are all pawns and his game.

    • I wonder if the Jews said the same things you’re saying now, when the Nazis started rounding them up…?

      • Possibly. I spoke with a old Swiss lady once, and she said that they knew the Jew trains we’re going through their country but they chose to not do or say anything because they were afraid of the Nazis as well. What she didn’t know was without the Swiss banks, the Nazis wouldn’t have been able to bankroll their machine by laundering gold. So yeah unlike the Jews, putting on a mask isn’t the same has being led into a gas chamber. Putting on a mask is about helping slow down the spread of the virus. I don’t like the mayor and I’m about as conservative as they come but in this case he’s trying to save lives now you can believe that or not but it’s what I believe.

        • It didn’t start with trains and gas chambers, it started with wearing a symbol of being a Jew.

    • Stuff it Greg. You have the right to your opinion but the pontificating is getting tiresome. Your “just obey and we’ll all be fine” attitude is part of the problem. Berkowitz and that gaggle of personality disorders we call an assembly are giddy with power and should be resisted or, at the very least, ignored.

      • No, you brought this on yourself. It wouldn’t have hurt you one iota if you had put a mask on and showed respect for your fellow citizens and their feelings. When you didn’t do that, the mayor just started laughing saying look at the fools they’re playing right into my hand. Now I can make all these mandates because they won’t put on a damn mask mask. I can tell you that you are a minority. Down here, everyone wears a mask because we see the death every day. It’s not because somebody tells us to put one on it’s because we do it to help our fellow man.

        • You keep saying this, but it seems that if masks actually did anything helpful, and you’re all wearing masks, you wouldn’t be “seeing death every day…”

          Then again, given Florida’s large number of older people, no matter what you do you’ll see death – that’s what happens at the end of life.

          In fact masks are probably part of your problem, given that what they *are* pretty effective at is capturing and culturing bacteria and fungi, right near your mouth and nose. That, and the fact that pretty much every death is called a “covid death.”

          We help our fellow man by not promoting lies which cause fear and division – which is what wearing a mask also does now, quite effectively.

          People would have long forgotten about this scamdemic if they weren’t constantly reminded by faceless sheep, “Be afraid!”

        • Bert your fearless mini leader Berkowitz a complete moron and he has destroyed this city ..if you don’t see it, you’re a bigger moron than he is.

        • Can you please let everyone know why your commenting on an Alaskan page from Florida? I mean you could have picked any state or maybe you are a troll who goes around on the internet fear mongering everyone. This isn’t “Must read Florida”.

          • Sergey, Greg is a recent retiree who lived in rural Alaska for many years and he is certainly welcome here, as are others from other states. -sd

    • Greg, 30 or so people are in Hospital in Alaska as I write this with Covid, with a population of 700000 plus residents, hardly a pandemic. Fact is Berky and his ilk will go to any extreme to exercise power. Wearing of mask’s , especially cowboy kerchiefs or Crown Royal bags has little value, except to make you conform to the will of the State.

        • You need to give more context, Greg, than just “we have semi-truck trailers” full of dead people. Do some research and compare cost to society from shutting down America.
          The country has 100 times more young people dying from combination of drug/alcohol/tobacco/sugar abuse – each abuse much more detrimental to society than old people (like me) confronting their natural mortality.

    • No Scientific evidence that wearing a mask does any good. The only thing is does is make little Dictators like Berkoshitz think they have control over the people. People need to stop adhering to this tyrannical Mayor and tell them to shove it where the sun don’t shine.

    • I see everyone wearing a mask when I go out shopping. To whom are you referring? It is just about control. It is not about safety or health. Read!

  8. This statement is a quote from a Commentary in the Epoch Times by Michael Walsh 8/25-27:

    “So be warned: If you think the petty tyrants (politicians) currently making your lives miserable are going to willingly relinquish their illicit powers, think again. They’ve got a taste for it now. No matter how flat the (COVID-19) curve gets, no matter how slow the spread becomes, they don’t intend to give up control without a fight.

    The question is: what are you going to do about it?”

    • Spot-on quote. Couldn’t agree more. It is naive to believe tyrants are going to relinquish power they’ve acquired.

    • Absolutely True! What is the old saying about the three boxes of Government? We have the Ballot Box, which the enemies of freedom have treated with disdain since their ideas have not prevailed. The Jury Box, wait, no Jury Trials are allowed since covid? Is that true? If it is then that right has been taken along with your right to address your local representatives in open meetings, ostensibly due to Covid. That leaves the last and most drastic , the Cartridge Box. Yes, that right, the one the Founding Fathers well understood. I pray that peace will prevail and that the people who love their freedoms can win at the ballot box. The last resort is unfathomable. It means giving up everything in order to freedom for our progeny. What are we ready to do?

  9. He’s following party orders, “Keep this going through the forth quarter, at all costs.”
    .
    Educated idiots running roughshod over taxpayer rights, nothing new, more recycled Central Party crap.

  10. Give Me Liberty or Give Me a 0.03% Chance of Death! Just ignore these decrees, the Mayor has no clothes.

    • More like 10% down here. You have the luxury of being spread out. By no fault of your own ama you are able to naturally do a self distancing thing just because of the distance between municipalities and villages and the way we travel.

      • Your 10% is probably overblown. I would refer to those who are “identified” with covid; it all those who have it, much less percentage of total population.
        If it’s 10% that’s because you’re in an area heavily populated by seniors.
        But I still doubt your numbers.

          • 10% chance of death? 10% of what? Total population? Infected population? All those infected + recovered? Plus an endless variety of other statistical parameters. Speaking loosely of numbers is no more productive than the slurred speech of a drunken sailor.

  11. Praying for an ‘awakening’ among voters, that they will see the reality of the situation and make the needed changes in upcoming elections.

  12. Yup, am now totally convinced that Kenai is too close to Anchorage. Guess more than anything else is that he and his minions on the council are getting away with this display of delusional grandeur.

  13. JUST SAY NO!!! If everyone peacefully protested by refusing to comply he could not get away with this evil power grab over We the People. I’m in, are you?

    • “Groups at restaurants and bars may not mix with other groups.”
      .
      Everybody got to mix now… and dance… to live, loud, happy music.
      .
      Voulez- vous danser?
      .
      All in…

    • Nope. Are you really fighting for the right to spread this novel deadly virus? This is the cause you’re taking up? Why stop there? Why are you silent about other public health restrictions like wearing clothes and shoes or not smoking in public buildings? Who is the mayor tell you to not go shopping naked?

      • To be clear, prohibition of smoking in private buildings is a stripping of property rights under the perverted legal theory of “public accommodation”–a constitutional perversion. A private owner may desire to allow smoking within his private property (building) and thereby give the public the choice whether or not to enter. However, a tyrannical government has imposed an abrogation of property owners’ constitutional rights.

  14. Exactly how is this enforceable?

    If I choose to chat with a different group, how will the Mayor know?
    What if I choose to dance alone?

    What is this except another demonstration of how a petty tyrant has to petty tyrant?

  15. 20 cases at McLaughlin. 20 cases at beans cafe. Someone at Sullivan arena tested positive. Schools just reopened. We should open the bars, sounds like a great idea. We all know that people gotta get out, drink alcohol and get their groove on. The bars being open is as necessary as oxygen. Some peoples priorities are a mess.

  16. How many people who complain about the mayor’s reprehensible actions choose to remain complicit and obedient to his tyrannical edicts, demonstrating egregious contempt for the People? The least anyone can do is become a Peaceful Protestor by refusing to wear a face muzzle which has been scientifically proven to offer no protection from viral respiratory infections. Additionally, peacefully protest by refusing to comply with the lie that an arbitrary six-foot space between humans will do anything to make them “safe” or “healthy” from a hyped-up bogey-virus with a 99.96% recovery rate. The truth will set you free!

      • Actually, per the latest CDC research, most masks protect neither. The only effective protection is a NP95, likely with a valve for those with lung disease so their exhaled breaths are completely unfiltered. But the people who need to wear it are the ones who need protection, not the rest of us.

    • It sounds like you haven’t had the sad experience of losing a loved one to this virus. If you had I think you would take a different position.

      • I’ve lost too many things. I’ve lost to car wrecks but I don’t advocate banning cars, and I still drive. I’ve lost to alcoholism but I don’t advocate banning nor excessively taxing alcohol, and I still occasionally drink. I’ve lost to many, many things, including a row of graves of young people all dying in a few days from the Spanish Flu in 1920. But I advocate (not demand) reasonable personal precautions and let people live as they wish.

  17. The mayor is auditioning for the national stage playing the part of Pelosi lieutenant. More corruption, control, casualties and chaos. Text book nationalist Democrat. Absolutely zero surprises here. Now, does one stay if his ilk remains in power after next election or move out? Assembly is in line – step with the dictator which lays the path for this power grab and manipulation to continue for the foreseeable future. Cantwell is looking pretty good right about now.

  18. No dancing or music? This is like that old movie “Footloose.” These idiotic rules have nothing to do with safety or containing the virus. This is about an evil little leftist mayor flexing his power and will upon the population. If you don’t comply he sends out his little minions and they slap you with a tax. Leftist Democrats love this virus and they will never let it go. So sad.

  19. Why do you say ” those restaurants that are still in business”? This implies that many have gone out of business. Do you have data to support this? You know, so it feels like real journalism?

    • Robin – Thank you for the question. Last Frontier Bar, Perfect Cup Cafe, Cattle Company, Momma O’s, are a few that come to mind. Readers, feel free to fill in the rest for Robin. – sd

      • Not only that, SD, there is the cost of reopening and uncertainty of “permission” to stay open, to these businesses.

    • There’s a practical aspect as well. All but the rarest of restaurants are operating either at a deficit or are closed. A few have the ability to operate tables outdoor and occasionally on a blocked street if they’re affiliated with the mayor however, most do not.

      As an example, The Perfect Cup was forever located on the second floor of the Dimond Center Mall. There’s no chance they could ever do what the luckiest of starving restauranteurs have been doing as they didn’t have a nearby parking lot. They also didn’t have an offsetting take-out option.

      Several have thrown in the apron and now that the rainy season is upon us restaurants will have an increasingly tenuous grasp on survival.

    • Oh get off it!!
      You act like no one ever died in this country. In a population of 328 million 180,000 is pretty average for a disease process. Compare that to the 647,000 that will die this year of cardio vascular diseases plus the 79,000 from diabetes. Someone once said Living is the art of dying, well you can choose to spend your days cowered in the corner or stand up and be master of your life and let the chips fall where they may???

        • Why thank you kind sir! Sadly you have demonstrated that you really don’t care about your fellow earthly travelers. What you and the mayor care about is to bully and threaten people into submitting to your idea of how they should conduct their lives and any dissent is unacceptable. So on your advice I collected my chips and went to the Matsu Fall Festival, where unmasked fun was had by all.

    • 180,000 listed as COVID. How many of those are people near death for other reasons? LIVING is a priority. For those too timid to live, I suggest crawling into your hole and hiding out for the rest of your days. No fishing, no dining out, no dancing (God forbid! Is this Bomont, Oklahoma?). Nothing fun, just sit mesmerized by MSNBC. Of course that is not LIVING so let the rest of us live our lives. If it were up to ancestors like you we would still be clinging to trees anxiously watching for raptors.
      And how many deaths are caused by the lockdowns? Where is that statistic? How many at home cardiac deaths that might have been spared by a forbidden trip to the doctor or ER? How many cancer deaths to come due to missed screenings? How much domestic violence? How many suicides (1 in 4 youth admit to suicidal thoughts due to lockdown)? These are consequences too. You live your life as you see fit and let the rest of us live ours. You do not own us.
      And from 400,000 old unmasked men at Sturgis-37 cases. Wow.

        • Would it be asking too much for you to share your wisdom with those in whatever state you occupy now? You post monstrous amounts of genuinely insightful material and should consider all of us appropriately taught.

          Perhaps now you could share of yourself with some other group. Surely there’s someone in FL receptive of your teachings, no?

          You’ve shared plenty here okthanksbye.

  20. Every bar and restaurant needs to open immediately. Practice good sanitary practices. Stay home if you’re sick. Protect the sick, the infirm, and the elderly. Quarantining healthy people does not make sense. The social cost of further shutdowns/restrictions is tremendous. Stand up Anchorage! He can’t stop all of us. Be brave, be strong. Or just give up. Your choice.

  21. Masks are only there to show your plutocratic masters what a good little obedient a– licker you are. #changemymind

    They also unknowingly reveal the people tyrants will have trouble trying to bully into submission. #makenomistake

  22. The only thing preventing Communist China from world domination next year is our War President, who is strong and does things beautifully. Therefore, the question is not what you think or believe. Nobody cares about your views. The question is this: Does President Trump want us to dance? If the answer is yes, grab your family, friends and neighbors, and start dancing. If the answer is no, do NOT dance.

  23. The entire episode of the ‘suicide of America’ is and has been brought to you courtesy of recalcitrant (to vote) conservative voters. I, myself, have thought, why bother, someone else will take care of it (whatever issue). That, upon reflection (hindsight), doesn’t work out well. Now, Alaska is under the political, judicial, immoral and nonsense rule of the leftists, politically and judicially. The left voted, as a bloc. Reluctance to vote, for whatever reason, thinking someone else will do it for us, ignoring the swelling leftism in our cities, state and Country, has led all of America into the current predicament. Now, we may very well have to fight our way back to American standards and freedoms. We must do what we must do. If it’s fight, we fight. Voting will solve it in the long run. It won’t in the short term. Action is the only method to resolve the issues facing Anchorage, Alaska and all of America. Conservatives are smart. I know they see the writing on the sewer truck of leftist domination. Can’t let that happen, Alaskans.
    Some Anchorage citizens are up in arms (rhetorically). Not enough. Will you give up and follow the little sh– and his orders, or will you stand up for yourself, family, state and country? I’m ready, however much I can contribute, in deeds, words or materiel.

  24. I’m still mystified by the number of seemingly intelligent people who believe all this COVID nonsense. They actually believe the inflated numbers and are scared to death. Wake up and smell the coffee (if we have any coffee houses left to sell it). If you want to hide, then hide. Let the rest of us live our lives.

  25. So, like what is the end game here? When and how does it end? Better yet, what are the metrics?

    Mask wearing until when? Based on what?

    Restaurant and bar closures until when? Based on what?

    Remember that this is a respiratory virus, one that spreads based on what comes out of the lungs. Masking only ensures the viral load is not ejected from the lungs. And shutdowns only ensure that it takes all that much longer to achieve herd immunity.

    While I appreciate GF’s defense of masking. The way it is presented echoes the old defense of rape – you dressed the suggestively, so you deserve it. Ethan is making a conscious choice to do this. And he refuses to listen to anyone out of his small circle. Cheers –

    • I wear an n95 not only for the safety as me not spreading anything in case I am a positive carrier, but also because I have a bad case of asthma and the pollen really closes off my airways. I check my oxygen saturation several times a day and with the n95 I stay between 93 and 95% so unless somebody has one lung or lung cancer or bad COPD, wearing a mask short-term while you’re around other people shouldn’t be a problem if you truly care about your fellow man.

  26. Actually, wearing a mask is a personal CHOICE!

    I refuse to wear one because of my “medical condition”. That being an issue of privacy, it may not be challenged.

  27. Perhaps we should send some PlayMobil sets to certain Assembly members and Mayor Berkowitz.

    We could respectfully ask them that if they simply can’t overcome their virulent desires to micromanage peoples’ lives, would they please play with these instead?

  28. On Monday Mayor Berkowitz opens the restaurants 50%. He won’t be able to leave that alone, so plan on the restaurants closing down in another 4 weeks. What a yoyo he is!!

  29. When is Governor Dunleavy going come out personally and defend the residents of Anchorage.
    Trump would defend us.
    Dunleavy is weak and a disappointment.

  30. Feels like a social experiment to see how far they can subjugate the sheeple. There are options folks.

    If enough people walk on the hall and demand change (force it if necessary) things will change. It’s our state/city, please don’t forget that. We’ve only entrusted it’s management to them. I don’t recall delegating permission to manage my person or lifestyle.

  31. Kudos to AK who wrote the following post on Aug 28th. Could not have said it any better !!!!!! It’s worth posting again

    “I’ve lost too many things. I’ve lost to car wrecks but I don’t advocate banning cars, and I still drive. I’ve lost to alcoholism but I don’t advocate banning nor excessively taxing alcohol, and I still occasionally drink. I’ve lost to many, many things, including a row of graves of young people all dying in a few days from the Spanish Flu in 1920. But I advocate (not demand) reasonable personal precautions and let people live as they wish.”

  32. Just a thought.. Why is it that Anchorage doctors are not using Hydroxichloroquine with zinc?
    It is proven to be affective and safe. Might it be the $19,000 per positive case they receive from the government ?
    Is it about the virus or the election ???

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