Restaurant owners applauded the announcement that California is discontinuing its shelter-in-place order, allowing outdoor dining to resume, among other restrictions that will now be lifted. Dining has been shut down in the state since the first week of December.
In a statement, the Wine Country Coalition for Safe Reopening lauded the move. The organization sued the state in December over the outdoor dining ban, calling it “arbitrary, irrational and unfair.”
“Our first order of business is now getting our employees back to work so that we can resume serving our patrons safely,” the group said. “We will, however, be consulting with our attorneys on the next steps for our lawsuit to ensure our members are protected in the future.”
Laurie Thomas, executive director of the Golden Gate Restaurant Association, owns two restaurants in San Francisco. She said that while she’s excited about the prospect of outdoor dining returning, it won’t be enough to pull restaurants completely out of the red.
“There are no reserves, there's no emotional reserves, there's no financial reserves,” Thomas said. “So just saying, 'Hey, you can reopen' doesn't mean that that's a slam dunk.”
Shutting down and starting up costs money, she said, and many restaurants are wary of coronavirus variants gaining ground, forcing them to close again.
“We really need to have transparency from the state on how these shutdowns and reopenings are going to happen going forward,” she said. “And nobody has any answers.”
She says Congress should pass a federal stimulus bill aimed specifically at the restaurant industry.