As a rule, I don’t recommend people make dinner reservations for Valentine’s Day. Even in the best of times, I subscribe to the theory that February 14th is “amateur night” in restaurant world¹, practically designed to make everyone from the overworked staff to the couples with mis-calibrated expectations miserable.

These, however, are not the best of times. As if to prove the point, Andrew Cuomo, who has somehow received high marks for his handling of the pandemic, has declared restaurants can reopen for indoor dining at 25% capacity, starting February 14.

Even after granting restaurant workers eligibility for the vaccine, which remains in short supply, this is an untenable decision. I understand why Governor Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio are going forward with this — like every other state in the union, they are at the mercy of a year of disastrous decision making from the federal government and believe in the false choice we can either manage the virus or force businesses to shut down —but that doesn’t absolve them from this craven and irresponsible decision.

Helen Rosner notes there really isn’t a debate to this issue, at least not a serious one, and in lieu of rational guidance from our elected officials, the choices we make are increasingly important.

We are not, of course, individually responsible for the sort of relief, support, and subsidy that ought to be provided by a competent government, but surely we are obligated to consider the impact of our actions in light of all that has happened during the pandemic so far. In December, the city and state’s worsening infection rates and climbing death tolls were not the fault of desperate restaurateurs who chose to open their dining rooms, nor were they the fault of people who trusted the leaders who gave them permission to go and eat. But today, on the cusp of a second, nearly identical experiment with indoor dining, the moral weight of our individual decisions has increased. We know what happened last time; we know the limits of what this move can fix, and the extent of whom it can harm. There is a flip side to the fallacy of individual responsibility during the pandemic: just because we’ve been given permission to do something doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do.

My annual recommendation to avoid restaurants in mid-February holds a particular urgency this year. If cooking isn’t your idea of a romantic night, I totally get that, as much as I understand juggling room-temperature takeout or huddling under a heat lamp isn’t exactly a thrill. This year, though, try to find the romance all the same and extend a little love to your neighbors.