San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
NEW ROUND OF CLOSURES BEGINS WITH DEFIANCE, COMPLIANCE
Frustrated business owners react to indoor limits as cycle of restrictions continues
State and county orders for a wide swath of San Diego businesses to close indoor operations yet again took effect after the stroke of midnight Saturday, as the region struggles to control the spread of COVID-19.
The public health order requires gyms, restaurants, churches, movie theaters and bars that serve food to shift to outdoor-only operations. Some businesses are defying the orders, while others have fallen in line. All expressed deep frustration, confusion and hurt over a cycle of closings and reopenings they feel is unsustainable and ineffective. “We’re going see a lot more businesses close all over again,” said Nicholas Kacha, manager of Rudford’s Restaurant in North Park. “This is the last dagger for everyone. And it’s pretty scary.”
Before this year, the iconic restaurant, located on El Cajon Boulevard, had been open 24 hours a day, seven days a week since opening in 1949. The pandemic changed that back in March, when Rudford’s temporarily closed and Kacha slashed his team from 50 employees to about a dozen.
With support from the federal Pay
check Protection Program, he rehired nearly everyone. But it hasn’t been an easy road. Sales have fluctuated between being down 30 percent to 80 percent.
And now, with temperatures cooling and indoor dining no longer an option, things are looking especially bleak.
“What do we do with 60 turkeys we ordered for Thanksgiving? What do we do? We just laid off 10 people yesterday. What are we going to do?” said Jeff Kacha, the restaurant’s owner and Nicholas Kacha’s father.
“Give me the COVID,” he answered, “because I’d rather have COVID than starve.”
Father and son had openly planned to defy the county and state’s public health orders. That was before they say they received anonymous calls from people threatening to throw rocks through the restaurant’s windows if they stayed open. The Union-tribune could not confirm those calls, though several online reviews and social media posts have been sharply critical of the restaurant’s plans to remain open indoors, with some threatening to report Rudford’s and others offering support.
“This is beyond crazy,” said Jeff Kacha. Other restaurants simply don’t plan to comply.
That includes Testo Pepesto Italian Restaurant in downtown El Cajon, owned by Oleg Prokofiev. Since the pandemic began, the restaurant has relied increasingly on takeout orders and delivery services like Grubhub, though Testo Pepesto also has about 12 outdoor tables for patrons. Prokofiev intends to let loyal customers continue to dine inside at night.
“Because of the pandemic, because of the quarantine, we don’t have any events going on here in the downtown area,” Prokofiev said. “As a result, we lost a lot of the business.”
Businesses that continue operating indoors in El Cajon are unlikely to face consequences. The city’s mayor, Bill Wells, has already said he doesn’t plan to enforce the state and county’s latest public health orders.
“I don’t want to punish these folks and treat them like they’re criminals,” said Wells in a Friday interview with KUSI.
Defiance wasn’t to restaurants.
Metrof lex Gym in Oceanside remained open Saturday, with some patrons working out on indoor equipment and others outside on the fenced-in sidewalk, most without masks.
Owner “Big Lou” Uridel, who has defied county health orders in the past, said he considers his business to be physical therapy and therefore exempt from the indoor closing order.
“We are in compliance with all the regulations,” said Uridel, who was briefly arrested in May for reopening his gym too soon. He ran unsuccessfully for Oceanside mayor this fall, basing restricted his campaign largely on supporting the rights of smallbusiness owners to be free of excessive oversight.
“I just don’t think it’s warranted,” he said of the return to increased restrictions. “We haven’t had any cases come out of here. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
Jim Kidrick, CEO of the San Diego Air and Space Museum, feels the same way, saying that no community outbreaks have been linked to the Balboa Park museum.
The museum first closed March 16. Then reopened June 12. Then closed July 7. Then reopened Aug. 31.
For decades, the museum has showcased fearsome fighter jets and out-of-thisworld spacecraft replicas.
Now, it’s essentially a gift shop open on Saturdays and Sundays. That’s the only section that is open, a move intended to scrounge up sales. “Even if we make $5, that’s better than no dollars,” Kidrick said.
The latest restrictions might go on for a while. San Diego is now in the state’s most-restrictive reopening tier, the purple tier, and will stay there for at least three weeks — perhaps longer, depending on how consistently the county can keep its COVID-19 case rate at or below 7 cases per 100,000 residents.
The region is clearly struggling to control the spread of the coronavirus. On Saturday, the county reported 736 new COVID-19 cases, a single-day record. And local scientists are noticing more signs of “superspreading” events, in which a single person infects an unusually large number of people with the virus. But will the latest round of restrictions help turn things around?
Since late October, bars and restaurants have made up just 10 percent of the locations that residents told case investigators they visited in the two weeks prior to the onset of illness, according to the county’s latest COVID-19 Watch report. Gyms have come up in 0.5 percent of interviews. Places of worship were mentioned by 3.1 percent of those interviewed.
By comparison, about a third of those interviewed said they went to work in the two weeks before they first felt sick; a similar fraction reported spending time at another person’s house, and 1 in 5 said they had traveled.
Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, alluded to this data in an adjudication request filed to the state on Nov. 5 asking that the county not enter the purple tier because “San Diego’s increased cases are not due to the sectors impacted by moving into a more restrictive tier.”
The request was denied. But on Thursday, two San Diego restaurants and two gyms filed a lawsuit against the county and state seeking an injunction to halt the indoor shutdowns. The suit was filed on behalf of all restaurants and gyms by Home & Away Encinitas and Cowboy Star and Butcher Shop, both of which are restaurants, and gyms Fit Athletic Club and Bear Republic.
The case will be heard by San Diego Superior Court Judge Kenneth Medel on Tuesday.