Page 28 - Delaware Lawyer - Summer 2021

FEATURE | HOSPITALITY POST-COVID
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One of the over-arching business themes of the pandemic was home de- livery.6 If Delawareans could not go outside, they brought the outside world to them. Indicative of our reliance on home delivery, Amazon has posted four consecutive quarters of record profits, while recruiting over 500,000 employ- ees to keep up with surging demand.7
In Delaware — as opposed to Penn- sylvania, for example — liquor stores did not close during the pandemic. Del- aware law mandates that the individual buying the alcohol must appear in per- son to purchase (4 Del. C. § 516(a)). As such, delivery of alcohol to one’s home is generally prohibited.
The pandemic made vividly clear that a Delawarean can purchase nearly everything online and have it delivered quickly, including groceries and meals from restaurants. Apps like DoorDash and Grubhub are as desired these days as Netflix and Hulu. (For indeed, life can be abided with bread and circuses, and in particular circuses, as anyone who watched Tiger King can attest.)
Here then is the debate: We have a generation growing up with the expec- tation of ordering every possible item online and having it delivered. We have a state whose citizens have spent a pan- demic year ordering every possible item online and having it delivered. So, if a Delawarean uses DoorDash for food from a neighborhood restaurant, why can’t he order a six-pack of beer or a fifth of vodka for home delivery from a neighborhood liquor store? Is the societal trend strong enough to over- come a fundamental state tenet that an individual must be personally present to purchase alcohol? It is fundamental, supporters say, because the current sys- tem works and works well. For example, Delaware is extraordinarily proactive in keeping kids from liquor stores. Yet, if California is any indication, those same kids would have ready access to alcohol
via home delivery.8 Ultimately, should an established (and proven) system that protects against underage drinking yield to modern commerce where a Delawar- ean can purchase almost everything else for home delivery?
As a postscript to this debate, the industry is already thinking beyond delivery, by designing technology that can satisfy our whims instantaneously. There are Keurig-style machines now on the market, sold with pouches of alcohol. Instead of making coffee at home, the machines generate a myriad of cocktails. It is anticipated that the next wave of devices will print (or bet- ter yet, Star Trek fans, replicate) pizza, quesadillas and mac-and-cheese.
III.Takeout9
During the pandemic, restaurants (with liquor licenses) and bars were permitted to sell alcohol as part of their takeout sales. Delaware adopted this national trend as a common-sense way to boost restaurant revenues during the pandemic. Through the adoption of House Bill No. 1, alcohol takeout will continue through the end of March 202210 — and the General Assembly will surely consider extending the date or making the change permanent.
Under the law, any restaurant, brew- pub or bar may sell alcoholic beverages for takeout, curbside, or drive-through service.11 All alcoholic beverages must be sold in containers that are securely closed, and sales may not exceed three bottles of wine, one case of beer and one liter of spirits per customer per day.12
Alcohol takeout was the focus of House Bill No. 1, sponsored by Speaker Peter Schwartzkopf, and thereby the first legislative matter before the Gener- al Assembly this calendar year. The state budget, criminal justice and education are all vital to the workings of govern- ment. Yet, its inclusion in the first bill considered by the General Assembly signifies the importance of hospitality (and by extension, hospitality law) to
the fabric of our lives.
IV.Hotels and Travel13
Over the past year, hotels have tar- geted the importance of room-cleaning and reduced breakfast fare in the fight against COVID-19. These trends will likely continue. In the early months of the pandemic, Delawareans were en- gaged in a big clean — wiping table- tops, groceries and just about anything else — as we were coming to understand how the virus spreads. Hotel guests were naturally leery about room clean- liness and getting coronavirus from an overnight stay. At the same time, the good people who clean hotel rooms were sheltering in place, meaning hote- liers had fewer housekeepers reporting to work. One major hotel chain created a paradigm that the industry has ad- opted. After a room has been cleaned, a sticker is placed over the door and the jamb. When the guest checks in and goes to the hotel room, she sees that the room has been “sealed” and no one has been in the room (spreading coro- navirus) since it was last fully cleaned. When the guest opens the door, she breaks the sticker, reinforcing the no- tion that she is the first to enter since the last cleaning. Equally important, the room will not be cleaned again until the guest leaves (or the guest affirmatively requests a cleaning). In this way, the guest has a sense of security that she is not going to be infected from staying in the room, and at the same time, by per- forming fewer cleanings, hotels require fewer housekeepers.
Moreover, during the pandemic, hotels were forced to close or scale back their dining services. Before COVID-19, most hotels traditionally offered at least a continental breakfast. At present, many hotels have switched to a bagged breakfast, which might in- clude a wrapped muffin, granola bar, piece of fruit and bottle of juice. The in- dustry realized just how much money it was saving by not offering hot breakfast
26 DELAWARE LAWYER SUMMER 2021