San Diego Businesses Prepare To Reopen, Again

Credit: Courtesy of Eric Christiansen

Above: Customers dining on the sidewalk in front of Guava Beach Bar and Grill in Mission Beach on July 8, 2020. The city of San Diego waived permit requirements for outdoor dining after the state ordered restaurants to close indoor dining to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Many San Diego businesses are scrambling to provide outdoor dining, haircuts and other services to an eager public. But with so much about the rate of vaccinations and variants still unknown, much of the optimism remains cautious.

Aired: January 26, 2021 | Transcript

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Outdoor dining, haircuts, mani-pedis and tattoos are all once again available to San Diego customers.

Gov. Gavin Newsom lifted the state’s two-month-old stay-at-home order Monday, saying that computer modeling shows a continued downward trend in cases of COVID-19, as well as a drop in hospitalizations and ICU occupancy.

Lori Weisberg, who covers the tourism and hospitality industries for The San Diego Union-Tribune, talked with KPBS Midday Edition about the uneven effect of the shut-down on businesses. Fine dining establishments, she noted, essentially had to “hibernate” and wait it out, while take-out restaurants fared better.

Weisberg said models are showing that intensive care capacity in Southern California will reach 33% a month from now. The stay-at-home order was given when it reached just 15%.

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