Washington One of Only TWO States Without a Plan or Date to Fully Reopen. Businesses Beg Governor For a Plan

There is a petition, started by the Washington Hospitality Association, asking Governor Jay Inslee to put a plan in place to fully reopen the state and to actually set a date.

“It’s now time,” said Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the association. “We really are excited to have a date that makes sense, that aligns with all the things we’ve been talking about are important, and get our economy going again. And while we were very appreciative that the governor on Tuesday didn’t roll us backwards, a lot of his quotes indicated we don’t have a plan to move forward.”

Anton says his team was talking after the governor’s news conference around the same time the news broke that New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut set a plan to reopen on May 19.

“We’re like, well, where are all the other states on moving forward? And we started doing the research and really learned that 48 other states already either are open or have a plan to move forward,” Anton said. “Only us and Hawaii are the two states that don’t have a plan to move forward. Even California has a plan to move forward on June 15.”

This did surprise Anton as he says a lot of people have viewed reopening as a partisan issue.

“So I thought with roughly, I think it’s 19 Democratic governors across the country, that there would be other states that would have a similar opinion,” he said. “The fact that we’re really down to two did surprise me, to be honest with you.”