Atlanta City Council on Monday will consider the approval of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ latest executive order to greatly expand the city’s attendance limit for outdoor events.
Bottoms issued an executive order Tuesday to begin allowing outdoor events with under 10,000 people after May 15, according to a copy of the six-page document obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Last month, Bottoms issued a similar executive order lifting the city’s moratorium on permit applications for events like festivals and other large gatherings. Outdoor events for more than 2,000 people were prohibited.
Councilmembers Carla Smith and Amir Farokhi sponsored a council ordinance listed online that initially mentioned support for Bottoms’ previous ban on 2,000 or more people at outdoors events. But that ordinance was substituted with a similar ordinance expanding the attendance limit after the council’s Community Development and Human Services Committee learned about Bottoms’ executive order.
The committee unanimously passed the new ordinance to the full council for their consideration this week.
The mayor’s executive order comes as city officials consider having non-essential city of Atlanta employees return to government buildings next month. Those buildings could also be open to the public by mid-July, according to City Council Staff Director Theo Pace.
Atlanta is operating with a five phase COVID-19 Response Plan, and is currently in phase 2, which allows businesses to operate with “severe restrictions.” Phase 3 allows for additional businesses to resume operations with restrictions and capacity limitations.
City Council President Felicia Moore previously said the administration is making plans for entering phases 4 and 5 — which allow city employees to return to buildings, and public access to those buildings, respectively.
A spokesman for Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms previously told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that city officials will continue to monitor case data, and that the phased reopening plan was developed by an expert committee. The phases are based upon COVID-19 metrics, including the number of cases, positivity rates and hospitalizations.
Meanwhile, the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday that Americans who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus can gather outdoors without a mask except in certain crowded settings and venues.
