WORCESTER — City Councilors Tuesday supported the idea of reintroducing bar-top dining at local restaurants.

The restriction on bar-top dining has remained in place in the city due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while other communities have relaxed the restriction.

City Manager Edward M. Augustus said the restriction was kept in place due to the city's high case numbers.

Councilors said they deferred to Augustus and city public health experts on whether the science and data backs up the idea of allowing bar-top dining, again. District 5 Councilor Matthew Wally put an order on the council agenda Tuesday asking the administration to consider the move in light of improving COVID-19 numbers in the city.

Alex Guardiola of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce pointed out that the city's 14-day positivity rate has dipped below 4%, taking it out of the "red zone" of high-risk communities as designated by the state.

Guardiola said the pandemic has been brutal on the restaurant and hospitality industries; he said statewide, one in four restaurants have closed for good.

He said the majority of "super spreader" virus transmission events have not been traced back to hotels or restaurants. Numbers have come down in the state and the city as restaurants have remained open.

Guardiola said it could be done safely, with partitions and limitations on capacity and time.

District 2 Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson said people in the restaurant industry are having trouble hanging on, and anything the city can do would be extremely helpful.

Augustus said he sympathized with restaurant workers looking to increase revenue any way they can, and said he will look into the possibility, but said he is concerned about new, highly-transmissible virus variants that have made their way into the community. He said that he needs to make sure that if the city relaxes the bar-top restriction, it doesn't result in businesses getting shut down, again, because the new variants spread so quickly.

"We're always striking that balance," Augustus said.  

According to the latest numbers available from the state Department of Public Health, the city's percent positivity over the past 14 days is 2.36%, based on 47,624 tests.

Overall, city officials have said in recent weeks case numbers in the city appear to be following a downward trend after a "second surge" of cases over the end-of-year holidays. Still, some experts have cautioned that college and university testing in communities like Worcester can mask the true positivity rate. The colleges and universities typically test students repeatedly, and have relatively low positivity rates compared with the wider community.