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| Campers unload from charter buses at Rutland’s Holiday Inn Sunday evening. Courtesy of John Faigant, Rutland Town Health Officer |
A summer camp at the Holiday Inn in Rutland Town
is over the capacity permitted under Vermont’s Covid-19 restrictions,
according to the state.
The camp’s Bennington branch appears to be complying with Gov. Phil Scott’s executive order, which caps summer camp occupancy at 75%. But the Rutland camp has exceeded the 50% capacity limit the state has in place for lodging establishments.
The Holiday Inn’s full capacity is 600, according to Michael Schirling, commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. With an estimated 350 to 400 campers at the hotel, BRC Teens, is over the limit.
Vermont’s Division of Fire Safety visited the hotel Wednesday morning and issued a warning; they are expected to return Friday for another inspection, Schirling said.
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| Rabbi Moshe Perlstein |
Schirling said the Holiday Inn, not the camp, is responsible for coming into compliance.
The Holiday Inn declined to comment, and instead referred VTDigger to Perlstein, who did not immediately answer a request for an interview.
Schirling said the camp director is cooperating fully with the state. Perlstein also attended a Rutland Town Selectboard meeting on Tuesday night where he listened as John Faignant, the town’s health officer, listed concerns about the camp.
Faignant, who is also a selectman and constable in Rutland Town, was troubled by what he saw at the hotel when he visited Sunday evening.
The first town official to learn about Rutland’s branch of the camp, Faignant responded to a complaint on Sunday evening from a resident who told him that busloads of people were arriving at the Holiday Inn.
Faignant interviewed one of the bus drivers, who told the health inspector that the bus had carried 50 children, and that at least five more buses were on the way. Most campers are from New York and New Jersey.
Perlstein told VTDigger on Tuesday that buses to the camp in Bennington included space for campers to socially distance from each other. He hoped to quell residents’ concerns about the approximately 15 buses that arrived on the Southern Vermont College campus over the weekend by stating that the buses were not full.
Faignant doubts the validity of that statement based on the buses that arrived in Rutland. “That’s what the driver told me, that each bus was carrying 50 campers,” he said. “And there’s no way you could socially distance 50 campers on a bus.”
Most coach buses made by Prevost, the company that produces the buses shown in photos taken by Faignant, hold fewer than 60 passengers.
Faignant watched and took photos on Sunday as campers, some of whom were not wearing masks, unloaded from the bus to exchange hugs and close-up greetings.
“I observed staff not wearing masks, and when they learned who I was, they put masks on,” Faignant said.
Perlstein has said each camper was required to take a Covid-19 test days before traveling to Vermont. Campers’ results were negative, and those who had positive results were not allowed to come, he said. Faignant questioned whether all the tests were recent enough, and planned to meet with the camp director Thursday evening to review records of the tests.
Both the health officer and Joshua Terenzini, president of the Rutland Town Selectboard, are concerned about the potential for Covid-19 to spread from such a large gathering into the surrounding community.
He’s also concerned that splitting campers into two groups and transporting them elsewhere in town to reduce occupancy at the hotel, per the Department of Public Safety’s request, would be “counterproductive,” as it could endanger additional members of the community.
Terenzini has been fielding calls and messages from concerned citizens around Rutland County this week.
“My phone, my Facebook, Town Hall’s phone, our other board members, City Hall in Rutland City, Mayor Dave Allaire,” he said, “we have all been inundated with comments and concerns and questions and frustrations and fears, which I think are pretty realistic.”
Terenzini is concerned for the hotel staff, which he says has been reduced, who will engage with other community members.
“We’re very concerned for them,” he said. “We’re concerned for the loved ones they go home to, we’re concerned for the grocery store workers they come in contact with. We’re concerned for the community, that this could be the way it’s transmitted out of the facility.”
Terenzini said the town wishes Scott would reconsider the 50% occupancy requirement for hotels, and instead base the occupancy cap on the size of the institution. While he thinks the rule, as it stands, makes sense for small bed-and-breakfast-style inns, he feels large hotels should be more restricted.
“When you have a facility that can host 600 people,” he said, “50% is 300, and that’s still a lot of people, during a pandemic, to come into a small community and stay for a long period of time coming from other places in the country, including some of the hardest-hit places, like New York City, and the surrounding communities in New Jersey and elsewhere.”
Bennington town officials released a statement yesterday detailing actions the town has taken to ensure compliance with Scott’s executive order, including a cap on 75% occupancy at summer camps.
Given the camp’s reported number of 350 campers, the camp is well within occupancy of Southern Vermont College’s campus, which has an occupancy of around 1,000 people, Schirling said.
Some Bennington residents are frustrated that state officials have relied on the camp director’s word, and have not attempted to otherwise verify the number of campers, their negative Covid-19 tests, or whether campers and staff members are socially distancing and wearing masks.
“If there are reasonable grounds to believe someone’s in violation of an executive order, then we send a variety of different entities depending on the circumstances to check in on that,” Schirling said. “There’s been no information coming out of Bennington to indicate that they are not in compliance with the health and safety guidance.”
The town’s statement, written by Bennington Selectboard Chair Don Campbell and Stuart Hurd, town manager, also mentioned a blog post — titled “Jackson NJ Lawbreaker Sets Up Sketchy Summer Camp in Vermont?”— by an organization called Rise Up Ocean County that circulated recently. The group has been under scrutiny by New Jersey officials and anti-hate watchdog groups for anti-Semitic and racist comments that appeared on its Facebook page.
“Earlier this year, the governor of New Jersey identified Rise Up Ocean County as an anti-Semitic group and their Facebook page was taken down due to their hateful messages about the Jewish community,” the statement reads. “The town of Bennington does not condone any hateful rhetoric and strives to create a welcoming and safe environment for all.”
Terenzini said his reluctance about Perlstein and the camp is centered on health concerns and its alignment in timing with Covid-19.
“In normal times, without a pandemic, we would roll out the red carpet for him and his youth,” he said. “We would celebrate with him and we would welcome him to Rutland Town. But this has everything to do with the health and safety of our community. We want them here during normal circumstances, but this is a pandemic!
https://vtdigger.org/2020/07/09/camp-at-rutland-hotel-exceeds-covid-19-capacity-limits-state-says/