Restaurant Workers Only: Westchester Vaccination Pop-up for 800

VALHALLA, NY — The news spread mostly by word of mouth, but by the time the vaccination site on the SUNY Westchester Valhalla campus opened its doors, 800 county restaurant workers had appointments to receive their first doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine. The special mass vaccination event was planned for restaurant industry workers only. Slots were also made available for public-facing government workers - a group which only recently became eligible to receive the vaccine.

“Please do not share this link,” appointment paperwork obtained by Patch admonishes those in line. “These clinics are reserved for Westchester County restaurant workers and public facing government workers only. You will be required to show ID for proof of employment at the door. Those who cannot will be turned away.”

Although many occupations, including most public-facing retail, sales, and maintenance jobs, are not yet eligible to receive the coronavirus inoculations, the restaurant industry has lobbied to make its workforce among the first eligible. Trade groups such as the New York Restaurant Association urged Albany to consider restaurant employees as at-risk essential workers - noting that public-facing front of the house positions are among a select few jobs in which workers deal directly with members of the public who are not wearing face masks while eating or drinking.

“We all know about the dire financial crisis facing the restaurant industry,” New York State Restaurant Association CEO Melissa Fleischut said in a statement this January urging the state to take measures to get restaurant staff back to work safely. “We all agree that we need to reopen the economy or there will be nothing left to reopen. We’re urging the state to take some small steps in that direction. Any help will go a long way toward the long-term survival of so many of our favorite restaurants..”

Early this week, word spread among restaurant owners and managers in Westchester that special appointment times exclusively for food service workers had been made available. The county’s waitstaff, servers and dining room supervisors scrambled to take advantage of the program.

“My boss sat with me and made an appointment on the computer,” White Plains kitchen worker Jose Arturo told Patch after receiving his first Moderna dose on Wednesday. “I told him, now I don’t have to wear this mask. Not really. But soon I hope.”