Illinois bowling alley owners have reached a deal with the state government to settle their lawsuit challenging the COVID-related limits with which they had been saddled by Gov. JB Pritzker as part of his response to the continuing pandemic.
Earlier this week, the Illinois State Bowling Proprietors Association announced Pritzker’s Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity had agreed to essentially reclassify bowling as an indoor sport, rather than merely “indoor entertainment,” freeing bowling centers from a 50-person capacity limit the bowling centers would have left them on the economic brink.
Now, bowling centers will be able to operate with a capacity of 200 people or 50% of occupancy, whichever is less, according to information posed by the ISBPA.
The new guidelines were confirmed by the Illinois DCEO, in new guidelines posted on their “COVID Resources” site, effective Aug. 3.
Bill Duff, executive director of the ISBPA, said the agreement with the state still won’t allow bowling centers to operate “at 100% profitability.”
“But at this point of the pandemic,” few businesses can, Duff said.
“We view this as an amicable resolution,” he said.
The deal resolves a lawsuit the ISBPA filed against Pritzker and the state in mid-July. The Lincolnwood-based ISBPA filed suit in Lee County court in Dixon in northwest Illinois, accusing Pritzker of overstepping his authority and violating their rights to equal protection under Illinois’ state constitution.
Pritzker has been targeted by a slew of lawsuits since May, challenging his use of emergency powers in responding to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Illinois.
Citing emergency powers granted him under Illinois state law and the state constitution, Pritzker has issued more than four dozen executive orders since March, slapping on a raft of rules and guidelines, particularly against state businesses and organizations. These included orders which closed bowling centers, as well as a long list of other businesses designated by the governor as “non-essential” for three months.
However, as Pritzker began to lift social and business restrictions under his Restore Illinois plan this summer, Duff said bowling centers were blindsided by the governor’s decision to only allow them to operate at a capacity limit of up to 50 people.
Duff said the 50-person limit made “no sense” and was “not based on science.” He said the same standards didn’t apply to gyms, retail stores, casinos, restaurants, and a host of other indoor entertainment businesses, which he said cannot socially distance and regulate customer activity as easily and stringently as bowling centers.
Duff said bowling center owners were left in the dark, and questions to the governor’s office were never answered, prompting them to file suit to get the governor’s attention.
After they filed suit, the ISBPA and the Illinois DCEO negotiated a settlement, alleviating at least much of the bowling center owners’ largest concerns.
Under the deal, bowling centers were shifted from the “indoor entertainment” category, which included indoor trampoline parks, bounce houses and movie theaters, to the category of “all sports.”
With the category shift, Duff said, bowling centers can host larger numbers of customers, with proper distancing and face masks at all times, except when actually “on approach” to bowl, or when eating in designated areas.
He acknowledged the ultimate success of the settlement for the bowling centers would depend on how well bowling centers actually enforce the distancing and face mask rules.
“We know that if COVID numbers continue to increase, we may all get moved back again,” he said. “No one wants that.”