Establishments with liquor licenses have until Friday to complete and send the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages Division (ABD) a COVID-19 compliance checklist.
ABD spokesman, Jake Holmes says the checklist follows complaints that some businesses were not following the rules.
“The purpose is really for the licensee to certify that they’e read and understand the terms of the governor’s proclamation,” Holmes says.
Holmes says they had some 300 reports of businesses not complying through last week. He says the checklist asks them some standard questions about COVID-19 preaparation. “If they’ve arranged seating in a certain way to ensure that six feet of physical distance. That they understand that all patrons need to be seated and that they’ve implemented additional measures to ensure social distancing. It’s just a few yes or no questions,” Holmes says. “And then they have the ability to submit pictures to show us what they’ve done in their establishment.”
He says the checklist gives them a record to go on if they do get a complaint. “On our end, it will help expedite the process to resolve a compliant if we should get one — by allowing us to cross-check the information that they have provided with the actual findings that we come across,” Holmes says.
Holmes says they will go out to investigate if they don’t get the checklist back. And that could lead to further action.
He says they will see if it is something that they can work with and try to get them into compliance otherwise, he says it will be just like a normal inspection where they will open up a case depending on the facts.
Holmes says they haven’t taken any action at this point to revoke a license for non-compliance.
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