Dozen-plus states reopen with varyini limits
Distancing, no service Among eatery Changes
GRETNA, La. — More than a dozen states let restaurants, stores or other businesses reopen Friday in the biggest one-day push yet to get their economies up and running again, acting at their own speed and with their own quirks and restrictions to make sure the coronavirus doesn’t come storming back.
People in Louisiana could eat at restaurants again but had to sit outside at tables 10 feet apart with no waiter service. Maine residents could attend church services as long as they stayed in their cars. And a Nebraska mall reopened with plexiglass barriers and hand-sanitizing stations but few shoppers.
“I feel like I just got out of jail!” accountant Joy Palermo exclaimed as she sat down with a bacon-garnished bloody Mary at the Gretna Depot Cafe outside New Orleans.
In much of Colorado, people could get their hair cut and shop at stores again, though stay-at-home orders remained in place in Denver and surrounding counties. Wyoming let barbershops, nail salons, gyms and daycare centers reopen. In Maine, golf courses, hairdressers and dentists opened.
Hotels near South Carolina beaches opened and state parks unlocked their gates for the first time in more than a month. But in Myrtle Beach, the state’s most popular tourist destination, hotel elevators will be restricted to one person or one family — a potential inconvenience at the area’s 15- and 20-story resorts.
Texas’ reopening got underway with sparse crowds at shopping malls and restaurants allowing customers to dine in, though only at 25 percent capacity in most places. A video posted on social media showed a city park ranger in Austin getting shoved into the water Thursday while asking people in a crowd to keep 6 feet apart from each other. Police charged a 25-year-old man with attempted assault.
At Gattuso’s Restaurant in Gretna, Louisiana, Kent and Doris Alimia and their daughters, Molly and Emily, celebrated Molly Alimia’s 22nd birthday at one of the outdoor tables, which were screened by plants in wooden planters 5 feet high.
“It’s a nice change of scenery to actually get out of the house,” Molly Alimia said.
Outside Omaha, Nebraska, Jasmine Ramos was among a half-dozen shoppers wandering the open-air Nebraska Crossing mall. Most wore masks.
“I do think it’s a little soon, but it’s kind of slow and there aren’t a lot of people here, so I’m not too worried,” Ramos said.
Restrictions were still in place in Arizona, but warnings from police and health officials didn’t stop Debbie Thompson from serving food Friday inside her Horseshoe Cafe in Wickenburg, a town of 6,300 people about 65 miles west of Phoenix.
Cheered on by a few customers, Thompson was not arrested, but she later received a call from the state Department of Health Services telling her to stop violating Gov. Doug Ducey’s stay-at-home order.