New Jersey Administrative Code › Title - EXECUTIVE ORDERS › Title 55 - CHRIS CHRISTIE › Section - Executive Order No. 157 (2020)

Current through Register Vol. 56, No. 14, July 15, 2024
Governor Philip D. Murphy
Executive Order No. 157 (2020)
An Order Establishing Rules for Indoor Dining, Indoor Recreational Facilities, and Individualized Instruction at Gyms and Fitness Centers
Issued: June 26, 2020.
Effective: June 26, 2020.
WHEREAS, in light of the dangers posed by Coronavirus disease 2019 ("COVID-19"), I issued Executive Order No. 103 on March 9, 2020, the facts and circumstances of which are adopted by reference herein, which declared both a Public Health Emergency and State of Emergency; and
WHEREAS, through Executive Order Nos. 119, 138, and 151, issued on April 7, 2020, May 6, 2020, and June 4, 2020, respectively, the facts and circumstances of which are adopted by reference herein, I declared that the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency continued to exist and declared that all Executive Orders and Administrative Orders adopted in whole or in part in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency remained in full force and effect; and
WHEREAS, in accordance with N.J.S.A. App. A:9-34 and -51, I reserve the right to utilize and employ all available resources of State government to protect against the emergency created by COVID-19; and
WHEREAS, as COVID-19 continued to spread across New Jersey and an increasing number of individuals required medical care or hospitalization, I issued a series of Executive Orders pursuant to my authority under the New Jersey Civilian Defense and Disaster Control Act and the Emergency Health Powers Act, to protect the public health, safety, and welfare against the emergency created by COVID-19, including Executive Order Nos. 104-133, Nos. 135-138, and Nos. 140-156 (2020), the facts and circumstances of which are all adopted by reference herein; and
WHEREAS, to further limit community spread from person-to-person contact through use of social mitigation measures, Executive Order No. 107 (2020) closed all recreational and entertainment businesses, and limited all restaurants, dining establishments, and food courts, with or without a liquor license, all bars, and all other holders of a liquor license with retail consumption privileges, to offering food delivery and/or take-out services only; and
WHEREAS, given the decrease in the rate of reported new cases of COVID-19 in New Jersey, including a reduction in the total number of individuals being admitted to hospitals for COVID-19, the State can take steps to lift certain restrictions that were designed to limit person-to-person contact; and
WHEREAS, even as the rate of reported new cases of COVID-19 decreases, the ongoing risks presented by COVID-19 mean that many of the State's current measures must remain in place, both to reduce additional new infections and to save lives; and
WHEREAS, after consultation with officials from the Department of Health ("DOH"), I announced a multi-stage New Jersey's Road Back Plan (the "Plan") for the methodical and strategic reopening of businesses and activities based on scientific data and metrics concerning the level of disease transmission risk and essential classification; and
WHEREAS, the State is implementing its reopening process and has begun to relax restrictions on certain businesses, including the resumption of non-essential construction, the allowance of a number of lower-risk outdoor activities, and the opening of all retail establishments; and
WHEREAS, consistent with this Plan, I issued Executive Order No. 150 (2020), which permitted restaurants, bars, and other food or beverage establishments to provide in-person dining outdoors, again with social distancing requirements; and
WHEREAS, consistent with this Plan, I issued Executive Order No. 153 (2020), which permitted recreational and entertainment businesses to reopen the outdoor portions of their premises to the public, again with social distancing requirements; and
WHEREAS, while outdoor spaces continue to present a lower risk of COVID-19 transmission than indoor spaces, because of our continued progress in the fight against COVID-19, restaurants, bars, and other food or beverage establishments can begin to offer in-person dining indoors; and
WHEREAS, because of our continued progress, most recreational and entertainment businesses can now allow the public into their indoor spaces for activity, including but not limited to libraries, museums, aquariums, and public and private social clubs; and
WHEREAS, because public health experts have identified that indoor environments present increased risks of transmission as compared to outdoor environments, it is appropriate to impose even stricter social distancing measures and sanitization protocols on indoor dining and indoor recreational and entertainment businesses than are placed on their outdoor counterparts, including capacity limits to limit person-to-person contact and a requirement that individuals wear masks at all feasible times to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission when such contact does occur; and
WHEREAS, because indoor dining and indoor recreational and entertainment businesses also both entail a higher risk than indoor retail settings, as the former involves individuals congregating together in one location for a prolonged period of time, while in indoor retail settings, individuals neither congregate in large groups nor remain in close proximity for extended periods and so the risk of COVID-19 spread is reduced, it is also appropriate to impose stricter capacity limits on indoor dining and indoor recreational and entertainment businesses than are currently imposed on indoor retail settings; and
WHEREAS, although individuals in the indoor premises of all business establishments are required to wear a mask at all times, it is not possible for a customer to wear a mask when consuming food or beverage, meaning that all customers at any indoor food or beverage establishment must only be allowed to consume such food or beverage while seated at their table or at an individual seat, to minimize the risk of any person-to-person contact taking place between patrons without masks in any indoor space; and
WHEREAS, self-serve arrangements at food and beverage establishments, such as buffets, facilitate person-to-person contact and involve the use of common equipment and thus create an unnecessary risk of transmission and must remain prohibited, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ("CDC") have suggested; and
WHEREAS, in heavily regulated industries such as casinos and racetracks, where expert State agencies have special knowledge of and experience with the businesses' operations, these industries can and should be subject to any additional health and safety protocols that those appropriate authorities believe would be consistent with public health and industry operations; and
WHEREAS, even as the State begins to allow recreation and entertainment businesses to reopen their indoor premises to the public with strict social distancing requirements, certain indoor entertainment businesses still pose an unacceptably high risk of transmission of COVID-19 at this time; and
WHEREAS, in particular, performance-based locations such as movie theaters, performing arts centers, and other concert venues, must remain closed to the public at this time, because those businesses necessitate a large number of individuals congregating together concurrently in one indoor location for an unusually prolonged period of time, even more so than in other recreational and entertainment businesses where individuals do not inherently spend as prolonged an amount of time together in one single room or location, and because there are an especially high number of available outdoor and virtual options for members to the public to view and listen to movies and other performances, whether live or otherwise, that reduce the risk of indoor person-to-person contact and COVID-19 transmission; and
WHEREAS, indoor gyms, sports facilities, and fitness centers present particularly high risks of COVID-19 transmission, where people are congregating in a confined indoor space and working out, which entails sustained physical activity resulting in heavy breathing and exhalations that can increase the risk of COVID-19 spread, and where exercise equipment is shared by many different people over the course of the day, creating an additional danger of COVID-19 spread, and there are a high number of outdoor recreation opportunities to ensure that members of the public can engage in a wide range of exercise and fitness; and
WHEREAS, even as individual performance-based locations and gyms and fitness centers may take additional measures to address COVID-19 transmission, it will not be administrable, enforceable, and/or otherwise sufficiently protective of public safety to simply allow business owners to set their own divergent health measures, done without approval of the State and its health officials; and
WHERERAS, because dance floors by their nature are designed to facilitate especially close person-to-person contact, they must remain closed to the public at this time, even at establishments, such as food or beverage establishments, that are otherwise now permitted to reopen to the public; and
WHEREAS, because amusement and water parks include many high touch areas that make social distancing guidelines and capacity limits difficult to implement, maintain, monitor, and enforce, they must be subject to stricter capacity limits than other outdoor environments, and like gyms and fitness centers, cannot yet open their indoor premises to the public; and
WHEREAS, because gatherings bring people together to a specific location for a common reason and a common period of time, they create an increased risk of person-to-person interaction and contact among those participants that must be appropriately curtailed, especially when they take place indoors; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution and statutes of the State of New Jersey, particularly the provisions of N.J.S.A. 26:13-1et seq., N.J.S.A. App. A: 9-33 et seq., N.J.S.A. 38A:3-6.1, and N.J.S.A. 38A:2-4 and all amendments and supplements thereto, confer upon the Governor of the State of New Jersey certain emergency powers, which I have invoked;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, PHILIP D. MURPHY, Governor of the State of New Jersey, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and by the Statutes of this State, do hereby ORDER and DIRECT:
1. All retail establishments may open their premises to the public, whether that premises is indoors or outdoors, provided that they adopt policies that include, at minimum, the following requirements:
a. Limit occupancy of any indoor premises to 50% of the stated maximum store capacity, if applicable, at one time, excluding the retail establishment's employees;
b. Limit total capacity of any outdoor area to a number that ensures that all individuals can remain six feet apart;
c. Establish hours of operation, wherever possible, that reserve a designated period of access solely to high-risk individuals, as defined by the CDC;
d. Install a physical barrier, such as a shield guard, between customers and cashiers/baggers wherever feasible or otherwise ensure six feet of distance between those individuals, except at the moment of payment and/or exchange of goods;
e. Require infection control practices, such as regular hand washing, coughing and sneezing etiquette, and proper tissue usage and disposal;
f. Provide employees break time for repeated handwashing throughout the workday;
g. Arrange for contactless pay options, pickup, and/or delivery of goods wherever feasible. Such policies shall, wherever possible, consider populations that do not have access to internet service;
h. Provide sanitization materials, such as hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes, to staff and customers;
i. Require frequent sanitization of high-touch areas like restrooms, credit card machines, keypads, counters and shopping carts;
j. Place conspicuous signage at entrances and throughout the store, if applicable, alerting staff and customers to the required six feet of physical distance;
k. Demarcate six feet of spacing in check-out lines to demonstrate appropriate spacing for social distancing; and
l. Require workers and customers to wear cloth face coverings while in the indoor portion of the premises, except where doing so would inhibit that individual's health or where the individual is under two years of age, and require workers to wear gloves when in contact with customers or goods. Businesses must provide, at their expense, such face coverings and gloves for their employees. If a customer refuses to wear a cloth face covering for non-medical reasons and if such covering cannot be provided to the individual by the business at the point of entry, then the business must decline the individual entry into the indoor premises. If the business is providing medication, medical supplies, or food, the business policy should provide alternate methods of pickup and/or delivery of such goods for such individual. Nothing in the stated policy should prevent workers or customers from wearing a surgical-grade mask or other more protective face covering if the individual is already in possession of such equipment, or if the business is otherwise required to provide such worker with more protective equipment due to the nature of the work involved. Where an individual declines to wear a face covering in the indoor premises due to a medical condition that inhibits such usage, neither the essential retail business nor its staff shall require the individual to produce medical documentation verifying the stated condition.