COVID Restaurants
Speaker 1: 00:01 Patrons poured into the Gaslamp quarter over the weekend, celebrating the reopening of many establishments, but many were seen in and around bars and restaurants without masks and not abiding by social distancing rules, County health officials are keeping tabs of whether people are wearing masks in public, especially as cases of COVID-19 have gone up elsewhere in California, as the state opens bars and restaurants. Here's San Diego County is public health officer dr. Wilma Wooten. Speaker 2: 00:29 We know that some people I not wearing them, it depends on where you go Speaker 1: 00:34 joining me to discuss the reopening as Michael Trimble, executive director of the Gaslamp quarter association. Welcome to midday edition. Speaker 2: 00:42 Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Speaker 1: 00:44 Explain the street situation down there. More people in the streets, less people inside the establishment, right? Speaker 2: 00:49 That's right. So the gas end quarter has very narrow streets being a historic district. So with the less occupancy in these restaurants, it means less people can get in. It means more people waiting on the street, uh, to get into bars, clubs, and restaurants. So really what happened was that our merchants were following all the rules inside each establishment, but it was outside line line management that got to be an issue because people wanted to get in. People were congregating together, you know? And so the lines got to be long. And obviously there wasn't enough, uh, uh, oversight to look at all the lines. So that was really the problem. It wasn't actually inside the establishment. So, uh, uh, that, uh, Saturday morning I reached out to my merchants, made some critical calls to some of the top, top, uh, suppliers and restaurants to make sure that they were extra vigilant on Saturday to correct what happened on Friday. And I was out there myself and saw that there was a vast improvement from the night before. Speaker 1: 01:57 And how did they do that? Did they send managers out and folks out and say, look, these are going to be, the rules are, or we may not be able to reopen at all. Right. Speaker 2: 02:04 A lot of establishments didn't put down either decals or tape on the street and had more security walking the lines to make sure people were complying with, uh, the, uh, social distancing order and reminding people that they had to wear masks to, to enter the establishment. Speaker 1: 02:22 Is this a situation where you'd rather have a rather police yourselves as it were rather than hive cops or health officials get involved? Speaker 2: 02:30 Yes, definitely don't need a PD or health officials involved in line management. Uh, our bars and restaurants are very good at line management. I think the lines were extra long, uh, on Friday. And so that becomes something that is a responsibility of a bar or restaurant owner. So really PD is there to help keep people safe. If it comes down to anything that happens, you know, during bar break or the evening, it's a responsibility of the restaurant to manage those lines and, uh, where we're actually working on a solution that will roll out this weekend. And it's called curbside Gaslamp, uh, similar to what little Illy did. Uh, last week we are going to be doing it three nights a week, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Um, from this Thursday through the end of the year or when social distancing rules are lifted. Speaker 1: 03:29 And that basically involves just shutting more streets for those, for that period of time, uh, to, to open things up streets, the traffic, I should say Speaker 2: 03:37 on fifth Avenue, we'll be closing from K street to, to market. All the side streets will remain open. I have additional security that's being hired to, to help the restaurants and bars, keep the lines moving, keep the people distance. We also have these restaurants be able to move their patios, extend their patios onto fifth Avenue, 10 feet from the curb and the length of their frontage of the bill of the business. So there'll be able to accommodate, you know, additional diners. The occupancy will remain the same for the restaurant. We'll just be able to spread the people out a little more. So it'll be much easier to comply with that social distancing protocols that are set forth by the County. Speaker 1: 04:20 And there were reports of a lot of people not wearing masks, uh, outside a photograph and the union Tribune certainly reflected that. What's your sense of why people weren't wearing masks? Speaker 2: 04:32 Well, to be honest with you, I'm sure everyone is, you know, a little bit, uh, stir crazy being in their house. They want to get back to normal. I think people, when they go out, you know, depending on their age group will tend to be a little bit more lackadaisical about that. But I think that when people come to the Gaslamp quarter and they want to enter an establishment or want to come down to, um, this, um, extension of their patio extension program, uh, masks will be, um, required when they're entering the establishment or when they enter the new patio. So I think that, uh, seeing what happened last weekend, I think people are more concerned about following the rules and making sure that the guests do the same cause no one wants to go backwards. We only want to make sure we can progress and move through this together as a, you know, as a, as a neighborhood and as a community. Speaker 1: 05:27 And have you discussed the impact of having to go back to a shutdown mode, if COVID-19 cases should spike here again, Speaker 2: 05:35 we really try to be, stay on the positive end and you know, that is an end result of people not following the rules. And I think my merchants understand the large impact that would have to not only them, but to the city as well, as well as the County. So my merchants have been working very hard to make sure that we don't go backwards because no one can afford that financially and, and the neighborhood can, uh, take that kind of a hit on a reputation of what we have is the premier dining and entertainment district in San Diego. Well, that's certainly understandable. I've been speaking with Michael tremble executive director of the Gaslamp quarter association. Thanks very much. Thank you. Have a great day.
