SLO County regional stay-at-home order lifts as business owners rejoice: ‘It’s awesome’
California health officials on Monday lifted regional stay-at-home orders for the entire state — including San Luis Obispo County.
The move comes as coronavirus infection and hospitalization numbers show signs of rapid improvement from spikes during the winter, according to state health officials.
Though ICU capacity in the Southern California region, which included San Luis Obispo County, remained at 0% as of Saturday, state officials say four-week ICU capacity projections for the area are above 15%, the threshold that allows regions to exit the order.
San Luis Obispo County’s ICU availability was at 50% as of Friday, according to the county Public Health Department, with 52 residents being treated hospitals due to COVID-19
The end of the stay-at-home order allows for San Luis Obispo County to return to the state’s Blueprint for a Safer Economy restrictions. As of Monday, the county is under the purple tier, meaning COVID-19 infections are considered “widespread.”
Surrounding counties such as Santa Barbara and Monterey also had their regional stay-at-home orders lifted Monday.
“Together, we changed our activities knowing our short-term sacrifices would lead to longer-term gains,” Dr. Tomás Aragón, CDPH director and state public health officer, said in a prepared statement. “COVID-19 is still here and still deadly, so our work is not over, but it’s important to recognize our collective actions saved lives and we are turning a critical corner.”
The state also announced that the limited stay-at-home order, which instituted a 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew on non-essential businesses and activities, expires with the lifting of the regional order. In practice, few jurisdictions had enforced this curfew.
The CDPH news release says COVID-19 is “far from over,” but that there are “positive signs that the virus is spreading at a slower rate across the state.”
The state’s rolling two-week average for new lab-confirmed cases has fallen from about 40,500 to about 31,000 in the past 10 days, with the test positivity rate crashing from 13.4% down to 9.8%, according to state data updated Sunday.
The statewide total for patients hospitalized with confirmed COVID-19 has fallen from a peak of nearly 22,000 on Jan. 6 to a little over 17,800 by Sunday. The ICU total is declining more slowly, but has trended consistently downward for about two weeks.
What does lifting the regional stay-at-home order mean?
Under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s regional stay-at-home order, which went into effect Dec. 6, 2020, businesses such as restaurants, beauty salons and gyms were required to close indoor operations. Retail stores could remain open indoors at 20% capacity.
The move out of the stay-at-home order will allow restaurants to reopen for outdoor dining and several other types of businesses — including barbershops, hair stylists and nail salons — to resume operations.
“We have more than 500 people hoping to schedule appointments because they haven’t been able to come in recent weeks,” said Kim Boege, owner of Salon 62 in San Luis Obispo. “It’s awesome but a little overwhelming. We’ll get people back in here one day at a time.”
Ingrid Turrey, co-owner of Pacific Hair Salon in Cambria, also expressed her excitement.
“Woo-hoo! Do you realize we’ve been closed for six months out of the last year?” Turrey asked. “We’re very excited to reopen, and super grateful to our patient, supportive clients who stood by us and bought gift certificates and products as we struggled, keeping people safe.”
Schools may not reopen fully for in-person instruction until the county has been in the red tier, or “substantial” COVID-19 spread, for at least five days, according to the state public health department.
The San Luis Obispo County Public Health Department may choose to impose stricter rules than those under the purple tier
SLO County restaurant, store owners ready to expand operations
Multiple business owners in San Luis Obispo County said they’re pleased to be able to expand their operations.
Robin Covey, co-owner of Robin’s Restaurant in Cambria and Luna Red, Novo Restaurant + Lounge and Mint + Craft in San Luis Obispo, called the news “excellent.”
He said his family’s businesses were already working to schedule employees and re-hire to accommodate outdoor dining after being limited to takeout services.
Covey said that the patio spaces at Luna Red and Novo in particular have helped his businesses weather the economic hit of COVID-19.
“It will make a huge difference to have outdoor dining back,” Covey said. “People like eating on real plates with real glasses, not just picking up takeout boxes. This has been hard on employees in general, especially those with families to try to pay rent and help their kids with school work at home. It’s great to be taking this step of moving a bit back to full service.”
To counter chilly winter weather, Covey said, his businesses will have heat lamps for outdoor seating areas.
Joeli Yaguda, co-owner of the General Store in Paso Robles, welcomed the news of the lifting of the stay-at-home order and said that the county is moving in the right direction.
Yaguda, whose downtown store sells candles, books and more, said her priority is keeping people safe while maintaining customer relations.
“All three of us women who own the store have compromised immune systems for various reasons,” Yaguda said. “We want people to wear masks and we enforce that and we’ll continue to enforce those measures.”
Yaguda said that a key to economic survival has been loyal customers and people who support the businesses community-wide by shopping local.
“We all want to see each other succeed because we’re part of a business ecosystem,” Yaguda said. “We don’t want to see restaurants die, and we have to help them by eating and drinking there, because we all depend on each other to bring people to our businesses. If we gain five pounds during the pandemic, so be it. We’ll work it off later.”
Local business leaders celebrate return to purple tier
Downtown SLO CEO Bettina Swigger said that “the return to the purple tier is great news for restaurants to allow for safe outdoor dining since we are blessed to live in a temperate climate. It’s also especially good news for the hair salons and barbers who will be able to open for services again.”
“January and February are usually hard for small businesses and this year has been, without a doubt, especially challenging,” Swigger said. “However, there are a number of new businesses opening downtown and the local community has shown support for their favorite shops.
“We’ve rebuilt our website, DowntownSLO.com in order to provide better access to downtown businesses to support them by shopping online and planning visits in advance.”
Jim Dantona, CEO and president of the San Luis Obispo Chamber of Commerce, said that the lifting of stay-at-home represents “light at the end of the tunnel.”
“It adds energy and truly lifts a stigma that might keep people from supporting local businesses because of the term ‘stay-at-home,’ ” Dantona said. “For restaurants in particular, being able to offer dining outdoors is great because the takeout wasn’t working quite as well as they all had hoped. Now, it’s up to the community for us all to do our part to get (SLO County) out of the purple tier. That will help get us back to normal and eating indoors by stopping the spread.”
The chamber on Monday announced an added incentive to encourage people to shop in San Luis Obispo.
Working in partnership with the city’s government, the chamber will offer an extra $20 gift card for every $100 purchased at city businesses through the Buy Local Bonus program. That’s in addition to a $20 incentive, which means shoppers can get $40 in free money to shop at local stores for every $100 in receipts they provide.
“To date, 132 local businesses have qualified through the business buy-In form, and more than 1,100 shoppers have submitted receipts, totaling $184,583 in dollars spent at local businesses,” said Ryan Betz, assistant to the San Luis Obispo city manager.
“Community members can continue to support local businesses through the SLO Take-Out/Delivery Map, SLO Virtual Shopping Map and the SLO Wellness Map,” Betz said. “The city is thankful for the community for continuing to wear masks, staying at least six feet apart, getting tested, and refraining from social gatherings outside of their social bubble to help us stop the surge.”
The nonprofit Economic Vitality Corp., serving SLO County, officials said in an email: “When we moved to Purple before, we saw a bump and anticipate we’ll see it again with the hope that we do not have another shut down in our future.”
The EVC added: “We are currently the seventh-lowest county unemployment rate in the state as of Jan. 25. That is not a bad place to be comparatively speaking, and this will help us head in the right direction.”
This story was originally published January 25, 2021 at 9:26 AM.
