SARATOGA SPRINGS – “I’ve never gone viral before. I didn’t think it was for that,” said Matthew Bagley, co-owner of Harvey’s Restaurant and Bar, less than a week after his new fame began after posting a facebok photo of a Harvey’s receipt for $1 “Cuomo Chips.”
The food product has been touted as braised and has compatibility with a new order from Governor Andrew Cuomo, announced Thursday, which requires food to be sold with one or the other initial alcohol order.
Bagley’s photo was circulated on the web, shared through Native and American media before being collected through national media. On Tuesday, Bagley had interperspecies with the morning to demonstrate “Fox and Friends” and, in the afternoon, on Fox Business. Among them, a follower called Harvey’s and paid $500 on chiplaystation to give consumers as the day progressed, Bagley said.
And yet he doesn’t know if he complies with the law.
“We don’t know much about where we’re fulfilling,” Bagley said. “What we are told helps keep changing.” After initial attention beyond due last week, according to Bagley, he won a decision from the State Liquor Authority, which is guilty of explaining to licensees the rules of the nutritional mandate, imposed through Cuomo to curb the spread of the coronavirus by restricting crowds. drinkers.
The ALS first stated that a small basket of Harvey’s home Saratoga-flavored potato chip station was enough to satisfy the intention of hot regulation, however, adding sauce would suffice, according to Bagley. He and his associate chef, Adam Humphrey, also introduced a $1 flatbread with roast beetroot and goat cheese. On Monday, Bagley said, he got another call from ALS with a new update: the chip station and the sauce or a single flatbread were no longer enough. “They said we preferred something more substantial, like an appetizer or a sandwich,” he said.
The owners and managers of five bars and restaurants in Albany, Troy and Saratoga said Tuesday that they won two or 3 notices about what counts as a qualified food sale, depending on who they spoke to at ALS. No one sought to be subpoenaed for fear of the official attention Harvey gained.
Such confusion reigns in the state, said Scott Wexler, who, as ceo of the Empire State Restaurant-Tavern Association, represents the exit of the Albabig block and has had an ALS rate for 3 years.
“People stick to the rules,” Wexler said, “but it’s hard to master what they are.”
This is partly due to the reality that the tiplay station on the ALS website was first vague, playing the first five days, the rule was in effect for “game station, sandwiches and other foods” as a qualified rate to satisfy the hot regulations No company representative was willing to explicitly and officially declare a friend , not to a media organization or its website, exactly what it would do and what it would not do. A spokesman said ALS President Vincent Bradley was too busy on Monday and Tuesday to be interviewed.
The agency’s explicit explanations of compatible items, in the type of FAQs or a “Fair Questions” segment on its website, were not published until after 8 p.m. On Tuesday, around the same time as Thursday, when his initial commands arrived more than an hour after Cuomo first announced the rule. A more critical update can be published in Timesunion.com and Thursday’s newspaper.
In a further example of the confusing and at times contradictory communication from the state, the SLA’s guidelines, in their introductory paragraphs first published last week, refer to “the requirement that food be sold with alcohol” and mention “Purchase of a food item.” The FAQ, lower in the same document and added Tuesday night, however, say, “While a charge is not necessarily required for the food, you must have a record that food was ordered with drinks, so bills/checks need to reflect the food that was ordered and served.”
Other complicated topics are that vineyard and brewery tasting rooms, which have a different alcohol license elegance than dining positions and bars, can provide snacks, “regularly fed without dishes”, as a suitable food, according to ALS. Guidelines Smuggling Clubs and Non-Public Social Clubs are exempt from Apple’s nutritional requirements. In addition, for years, large bars and apple-eating stalls have “made a nod to compliance,” as Wexler put it, by providing frozen snacks in the microwave as the only food that was randomly ordered. Eventually, the ALS told Wexler, but without putting it in writing, that it is permissible to buy food like a sandwich or a pizza painting at a nearby place to eat fast and take it to a bar to eat, Wexler said, and this complies with the burning rule.
Wexler stated that, until there are transparent guidelines, he advises restaurateurs and bar owners to meet food needs, based on their own conversations with ALS officials, if they emerge with the equivalent of a “small appetizer: four mozzarella sticks.” he says, with a dip. The association’s website comprises a segment faithful to the recommendation on compliance with the hot rule, this is countersition as further clarifications and facts are published, Wexler said.
He said he agreed with the intention of the alcohol food requirement, believing it to be an essential public physical condition at this point in the pandemic. “At the end of the day, what (the state) says is, “There are no crowded bars,” Wexler said.
“We would lend our best friend, as the liquor authority, to give us more flexibility,” Wexler said. If your own clubs do not prefer food, and if the chip station and diplay station are enough in a vinegar tasting room, “they will be wise enough to … other establishments in the city.”
He continued: “We are now encouraging (the state) to be firmer to the wrong players and give some flexibility to the people who apply the rules to keep their businesses afloat until the stage allows us to step back. General operations”. »»
At Harvey’s, Bagley and Humprey we continue to provide flatbreed, chiplaystation and diplaystation for $1.
“Until we know for sure what we’re capable of and can’t do, we’ll continue with that for now,” Bagley said. “Then it will probably be repositioned as well.”