Stores set to open with limits in S.F.
San Francisco health officials are on the verge of relaxing restrictions on retail business activity in the city on Monday — barring a spike in the number of confirmed COVID19 cases and hospitalizations over the next few days.
After largely being shuttered in compliance with the city’s shelterinplace mandates since mid-March, thousands of businesses — about 95% of all retailers in San Francisco, according to Mayor London Breed — will get to sell merchandise curbside or delivery, if they meet certain conditions.
Shoppers still won’t be permitted inside the stores themselves. All trans
actions, including payments, will have to be conducted online or outside. In most cases, that means patrons will have to place orders via the internet or over the phone and pick up their merchandise outside.
Here’s what you need to know about the expected changes Monday:
What stores can open up again?
⏩ Assuming there isn’t a surge in COVID19 diagnoses over the next few days, any retail store can offer curbside pickup and sales under certain conditions.
What are those conditions?
⏩ Curbsideoutside pickup and sales only. Customers may not enter any stores.
⏩ The stores must have access to an adjacent curbside, sidewalk, street alley or parking area where customers can pick up merchandise.
⏩ Pickup areas must not block pedestrians or cause pedestrian or vehicle congestion.
⏩ No more than 10 store workers, contractors, subcontractors, vendors or volunteers can be in the retail facility at any time. That number may be lower for smaller stores.
⏩ Workers must wear face coverings at all time while on the job, unless they have a written medical excuse.
⏩ Customers must wear face coverings if they’re waiting in line outside a store. Businesses will not be allowed to serve customers not wearing face coverings.
⏩ Business owners must provide a sink, soap and something like paper towels for employee handwashing. Workers must wash their hands at the beginning and end of each shift, and when they use the restroom, eat, drink, cough or sneeze. Personnel working offsite, like delivery drivers, must use hand sanitizer throughout their shift.
⏩ Businesses must also provide hand sanitizer at points of purchase for customers.
⏩ Business operators must provide disinfectant to sanitize hightouch surfaces, like shop
ping carts or baskets.
⏩ Break rooms, bathrooms and other common areas must be regularly disinfected. Shared equipment like microwaves, drinking fountains and water coolers are offlimits.
⏩ Retail stores in an enclosed indoor shopping center — like a mall — may not reopen, except to the extent that the store has a separate entrance to an exterior sidewalk.
When can retailers open for sales?
⏩ 10 a.m. Monday.
Any other requirements for businesses?
⏩ Each business that plans to reopen Monday must prepare and publicly post a written social distancing protocol for staff and a written health and safety plan.
Which other businesses will be allowed to open?
⏩ Manufacturing businesses and warehouses that make the goods sold in retail stores may also open, though no more than 50 personnel can be onsite at one time.
⏩ State health guidelines for manufacturers and warehouses will still apply.
Is it safe to reopen in this way?
⏩ Yes, according to health officials.
⏩ Curbside pickup limits the type and frequency of contact between people, lowering the risk of transmission.
⏩ Curbside pickup is meant to result in only a relatively modest increase in the number of people moving about and entering facilities. The required safety steps for these businesses to operate can meaningfully decrease the resulting public health risk.