Greeley City Council considers pursuing variance to help local businesses increase indoor capacity without help from Weld County

By Kelly Ragan

The City of Greeley is inching closer to hashing out a variance to allow restaurants, bars and gyms to have indoor customers, even if the city has to do it without the county’s help. 

At a city council meeting Tuesday, councilmembers gave city officials the green light to keep pursuing a variance similar to the one pioneered by Mesa County. 

Mesa’s so-called 5-star program essentially acts as a partnership between the chamber of commerce and the county’s health department. If small businesses agree to follow some procedures around health and safety, they can have some restrictions loosened. 

Mesa, like Weld County, is at level red on the state’s COVID-19 dial, meaning indoor customers are banned. But businesses that follow procedures could act under level orange restrictions, meaning they could have indoors customers at 25% capacity. 

Councilmembers discussed how much of an impact operating at level orange as opposed to level red would really have if restaurants, bars and gyms could still only be open at 25% capacity. 

Councilmember Ed Clark said he didn’t think 25% would help businesses do more than limp along, if that. But Mayor John Gates said he’s talked to several restaurant owners who disagree. 

“Today I asked two restaurateurs and a bar owner whether they thought 25% would be a plus right now and they said ‘absolutely,’ because they aren’t making it on carryout,” Gates said.

 But here’s the sticky part.

The Board of Weld County Commissioners has made it clear it will not request any variances from the state -- including this one. That doesn’t mean the city can’t apply for one, but it does leave the city in an unusual spot. 

Usually, the county and the county’s health department heads up that kind of enforcement. But Weld has also made it clear it won’t enforce public health orders. So, the state has largely been the enforcement body involved when businesses refuse to cooperate with public health orders. Recently, the state has gone after liquor licenses. 

But something like the 5-star program would require enforcement from the municipalities making the request. 

At the meeting, councilmembers discussed what that could look like. While the city would have to enforce the rules across the board, that wouldn’t necessarily have to come down on police officers. City Manager Roy Otto said it could be someone else from the city, such as code enforcement officers. 

“There is a huge difference between having a police officer come to a business and someone from code compliance,” said councilmember Kristen Zasada. “I would like to see code compliance instead of a police officer. In that case, I will wholeheartedly support the 5-star program.” 

Gates said that while he doesn’t like the enforcement aspect of the 5-star program, his posture on the matter has changed. 

“I feel like we can’t sit on this any longer,” Gates said. 

To that end, Otto said as Greeley put forth the application to the state, the city could ask for local businesses to be able to operate at one level lower than the county on the COVID-19 dial restrictions. 

The good news is that Welds on its way to meeting the requirements to drop down to level orange on the COVID-19 dial. 

As of Tuesday, Greeley’s Emergency Manager Dan Frazen said Greeley’s positivity rate was about 12.12%. According to county data, Weld’s positivity rate was 13.96%. 

“Weld is now under 1,000 new cases per 100,000,” Frazen said at the meeting. “We’d need to get to 375 new cases per 100,000 in a 14-day period to get to level orange.” 

So, if Weld did make it to level orange and Greeley got its variance approved, local businesses could then operate at level yellow – or back at 50% capacity like they did over the summer.

“I’m disappointed the county didn’t accept that variance to pass it through,” Gates said at the meeting. “But I want to do what we can for our restaurateurs, bar owners and gym owners that are struggling.” 

Continuing conflict 

This is not the first or even the second time Greeley has moved to align with the state rather than the county.

Back in November, the City of Greeley bumped itself up to level orange. At that time, Weld was still at yellow level according to the state’s dial.

“We want to be proactive. We weren’t going to wait for the county or state to do anything,” Frazen said at a city council meeting in November. “We still don’t know if they will. As you know, the county and the state differ on their perspective on this.”

The city also voted to approve a resolution supporting mask-wearing while Weld County still refuses to do so. 

Even over the summer, the City of Greeley was looking for ways to apply for variances separately from the county, in a move called a “municipal solution.” The idea was that if Greeley’s COVID-19 numbers went down even while the county’s numbers surged, the city could loosen restrictions to host events such as University of Northern Colorado football games or Union Colony Civic Center events. Greeley’s numbers never did get low enough to take that kind of action, but it did set the stage for city-specific variances. 

“We want to be prepared, have a plan in place, and have a relationship with the state,” Frazen said in July. “We want everything to be legal, we want to be in compliance.”