The state on Monday released guidelines for reopening restaurant dine-in services when counties enter the next phase of restarting the economy, but some small businesses are saying that keeping their doors closed will be simpler.

The guidelines include requirements that restaurants seat no more than half of the building’s capacity, with tables six feet apart, as well as contentious rules requiring that restaurants keep a list of customers with their contact information for contact tracing. Other requirements include single-use menus and condiments, plus regular cleaning of frequently-touched surfaces, among others.

Azad Tarikian, who co-owns Brazilian and Italian fusion restaurant La Cucina di Sophia with his wife, Andreia, said in an interview Tuesday that the restaurant will continue to serve only takeout until the Tarikians are confident that they and their customers will be safe.

La Cucina di Sophia faces some unique challenges, Azad said. With its open-air design, the Tarikians, who are also the cooks, couldn’t stay separated from customers. If they were to get sick, the restaurant would have to close down completely for months, which could bankrupt the business, he said.

In addition, if the restaurant were to open at half capacity with diners six feet apart, they would be able to seat diners at six tables at the most — not enough to recoup their costs, Tarikian said.

“With all of these guidelines that you have, to keep track of all of the customers and all of the monitoring with all of this cleaning, I’m going to need more employees for less customers,” he said. “This, for us, doesn’t make sense. We can’t make money.”

Several other restaurant managers across the county, who declined to speak on the record, echoed Tarikian’s sentiments.

The state’s guidelines have also faced criticism for the requirement that restaurants maintain a list of customers, along with phone numbers and email addresses, in order to make it easier to contact those who may have dined near someone sick with COVID-19. Other communities, such as New Orleans, attempted to implement a similar requirement, only to roll it back due to privacy concerns.

During a press conference Tuesday, Gov. Jay Inslee said that the information provided in these lists will be protected and cannot be used for anything other than contact tracing. Restaurants that attempt to use the information for any other purpose could face legal repercussions, Inslee added.

In response to a question by the Herald, Gov. Jay Inslee said his office hadn’t ruled out requiring diners to prove that the information they provide is accurate, such as with photo identification. However, he suggested that there would not be civil or criminal penalties for providing false information.

“No one’s looking to make this a federal crime. We are trying to save lives,” Inslee said.

The requirements will only apply once restaurants are given the option to open up, once the county they operate in is able to enter “Phase 2” of Inslee’s four-stage plan to reopen the economy. Currently, only counties with fewer than 75,000 people and who have gone three weeks without any new cases can apply to enter this stage early, though Inslee said Tuesday that criteria for larger counties would be released later this month.

Emry Dinman can be reached via email at edinman@columbiabasinherald.com.