“I’m not getting nervous, yet,” said Sandy Superak, manager of Tiffany’s Event Center in Brookfield.
“But, it’s certainly gonna be an adjustment,” she said.
Superak was talking about how the Ohio Department of Health’s prohibition of any event that “brings together 100 or more persons in a single room or single space at the same time” is affecting Tiffany’s. The prohibition was made in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
As of Friday, Superak had had to postpone six events. The Hubbard school superintendent pulled the plug on a basketball banquet on Thursday, just hours before it was supposed to be held. Other events affected include Treystock, the annual rock concert and charity fundraiser; Trumbull County Road and Gun Club; and Sharpsville Fire Department.
Lorraine Gibson prepares a table at Tiffany’s Event Center in Brookfield for a wedding set for March 14. Weddings are allowed under an Ohio order that otherwise bans gatherings of a large number of people.
The prohibition does not include weddings, so Superak and her staff were busy Friday setting up for one set for Saturday.
Brookfield Township trustees announced Friday that they were closing the township social hall and park “until further notice,” affecting four events at the hall, said township Office Coordinator Tabatha Dickson. The Brookfield High School Football Booster Club has already canceled “Night at the Races,” and a couple planning to have their wedding reception at the hall had been talking about moving the wedding date, she said.
“It wasn’t like it was a shock to anybody,” Dickson said of how the trustees’ announcement impacted those who had booked the hall. “They were already prepared.”
Superak said she was on the phone immediately with her attorney, after Gov. DeWine and Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton announced the prohibition on Friday, to understand what the order meant.
“I’ve never been faced with this before,” she said. “It’s scary.”
All of the postponed events were fundraisers in which more than 300 people were expected, and Superak was crossing her fingers that they do not become cancellations.
“I’m worried about the proms coming up,” she said, noting she has six booked, the first of which is on April 18.
The problem with rescheduling is that she doesn’t have a Saturday open again until November.
“We’re booked so hard this year,” Superak said. “I don’t have dates to move them to. We have been slow, and we finally hit a busy season and I can’t even have our busy season.”
In response to the pandemic, Superak has placed containers of Clorox wipes all over the hall so people can easily grab one and wipe their hands, and is putting up posters about washing hands and protecting oneself from germs.
In addition to weddings, the order excludes funerals, “religious gatherings,” “gatherings for the purpose of the expression of First Amendment protected speech” and “athletic events that exclude spectators.”
