The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation is immediately suspending on-site alcohol consumption at bars statewide.
The announcement came in a tweet June 26 from the official account of department Secretary Halsey Beshears and an identical notice was issued on the Florida DBPR’s official Twitter account.
The directive’s release by social media did not provide further context, but the order comes as Florida has seen a recent spike in daily confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is scheduled to hold a news conference at 1:30 p.m. June 26 related to COVID-19.
The city of Jacksonville retweeted the order in an attempt to notify Duval County area bars.
The notice came moments after the mayors of Duval County’s beach communities gave a joint news conference banning alcohol sales for bars and restaurants from 12 -2 a.m. in response to the spike in coronavirus cases.
“I don’t think any of the mayors knew that was coming out,” Jacksonville Beach Communications Manager Jacob Board said about the state order in a phone interview June 26.
Board said the state’s directive does supersede the executive orders issued by the Beaches mayors June 26, but Jacksonville Beach officials will be consulting with its attorney to understand if the order considers a bar a business that receives 50% of its sales from alcohol, as defined by DeSantis’ April 1 safer-at-home order.
This is a developing story.