[ad_1]
With lockdowns looming from Sunday night, it looked like no one in the Bay Area was staying home on Saturday, enjoying one last outing before curling up for weeks.
Buyers ran to grocery stores for supplies. Parents took to the playgrounds to push their kids on swings and watch them climb and slide before they closed. People flocked to salons for haircuts, and diners enjoyed their last meals in restaurant parklets for weeks.
And some of them wondered why. Show us the science, they said, that proves playgrounds, hair salons or restaurants outside are spreading the coronavirus. Explain why it is safe for people to shop inside stores when children cannot climb into a jungle gym outside. Tell us how the precautions we have taken have failed.
“I’m really angry. Really, really angry, ”said Lito Saldana, who owns 5 tacos and beers in Albany and three Los Moles restaurants in Emeryville, El Cerrito and San Rafael. “I wasn’t really expecting that.”
Saldana has avoided opening her Albany restaurant, even for take out, until outside dining is allowed in the spring. He has rearranged the seating configuration several times and he takes the temperature of everyone who dines in his outdoor spaces. None of the employees at his four restaurants tested positive for the coronavirus, he said.
While people filled most of his outdoor tables, Saldana sat indoors at a computer rearranging his menu, adding burritos and fajitas and other foods that are easier for people to prepare. He said he was aware of the need to tackle the pandemic, but was frustrated with the ever-changing edicts of the state and the health department, the differences between counties and how the different types of businesses are treated disparately.
“I don’t think only small businesses should close,” he said. “If they are closing restaurants, why not close Safeway, Costco or Whole Foods? Or have them delivered and taken away? And why can stores stay open with 20% capacity when we need to close? I don’t know why it should be any different. Everything should be the same. People are confused.
Saldana says 5 Tacos will switch to take-out and survive the shutdown, but he’s worried about his employees. It will likely reduce its staff from around 30 to just four or five.
“We pay them every two weeks, and they live paycheck to paycheck,” he says. “How are they going to survive?”
Across the street, Rebecca Shabazian was busy styling hair at Raven & Rose, a salon she owns with her ex-husband, Noel Shabazian. They were closed for six months at the start of the pandemic and were trying to schedule as many customers as possible over the weekend before they had to close.
“We have done our best to integrate as many people as possible safely,” she said. “But it is difficult. We had to say no to a lot of people.
During the shutdown, Raven & Rose will continue to sell beauty products online, a tactic that helped during the previous shutdown, Noel Shabazian said.
“We’ve done a lot of product sales online,” he says. “A lot of people supported us by buying a lot of shampoo that they probably didn’t need.”
Government support in the form of loans and grants has also helped, Noel Shabazian said, but so far these have been absent from this closure.
“Being closed this time makes us a bit more nervous because we don’t have the support of the government,” he said.
A few blocks away in Albany Memorial Park, Kathleen Lingo, a documentary film producer from Berkeley, pushed her daughter on a swing and questioned the wisdom of closing the playground.
“I would like to see the science to prove that playgrounds are not safe,” she said. “It seems arbitrary. The playgrounds are outside. Children and parents follow the rules. It’s not like we’re students.
With research showing young children less likely to catch or spread COVID, Lingo would like state and county health officials to consider the risk and reward of closing playgrounds and kidnapping children inside.
“When they’re inside all day, they scream, they scream, they fight,” she says. “They want to do the TV or the iPad and eventually you give in. It is not good for the health and development of children. They need to go out and play. For me, it’s worth the risk to bring them to a playground.
While people said they were not happy with the impending shutdown, most said they understood the importance of trying to stop the spread of the coronavirus and hoped the strategy to stay the course. house would work.
“It’s sad, but I think it’s necessary to protect everyone,” said Kari Hennigan, of El Cerrito, a psychologist who dines at 5 Tacos & Beers. “I get it. But I’m so sorry for the small businesses.”
Michael Cabanatuan is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter @ctuan
[ad_2]
Source link