San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Social distancing dos and don’ts
Mixed reviews for first weekend under shutdown — obedience alongside a plea from one sheriff for crowds to clear out.
You don’t get to touch the lettuce at the farmers’ market in San Francisco any more, and that goes for the green onions, too.
Social distancing means keeping your distance from — and your hands off — the produce.
“Usually people just dive in and grab things,” said Annabelle Lenderink, manager of the Star Route Farms stand at the fabled Ferry Building farmers’ market. “Obviously we can’t have that right now. We want people staying away from each other and from the vegetables.”
On most market days, the grounds are so jammed that it’s impossible to stay 6 feet away from the next customer. On Saturday, it was not only possible but required. For many merchants, cash was not king. Currency was discouraged and gloved hands were touching any proffered quarters or dimes with circumspection, as if they were made of plutonium.
Stalls were festooned with yellow tape or chalk lines, to keep customers back and in line. Buying a carrot seemed like visiting a crime scene.
Fishmonger Oscar Pato kept his halibut and sole hidden away in ice chests in prewrapped bags. Nothing was on display, as it usually is. You don’t touch the fish and you don’t hand over your credit card, he said. You wave your smart watch or your smart phone over the electronic gizmo.
Sprinkled between the stands were tables with hand sanitizer, with liquid soap and with various other disinfectants.
“Our customers cherish their time here,” said Brie Mazurek, a market spokeswoman. “Many have been indoors all week. We’re open, we’re an essential public service and people seem grateful we’re here. We’re a community, we’re like a church to some people.”
And with churches closed, she said, greengrocers seemed to be taking the place of clergy in offering the essential comforts.
Up and down the Embarcadero, pedestrians, cyclists, skateboarders and leashed dogs were keeping their distance. In past days, Embarcadero passersby have taken national flak for passing by too closely and ignoring the coronavirus restrictions, but it seems the word has gotten out. There was some handholding between couples, not much, and they were presumably cohabitants and cocontaminants.
Stella Bates, 70, said she is walking five miles a day now and feels pretty good under the circumstances. She’s from Great Britain, she said, where people are “less prone to panic” having lived through things like the Blitz.
“Being miserable is not going to do any good,” she said. “If you have the news on all the time, you’ll go mad. I try not to listen, especially when the president is talking.”
Nicole Zelada was taking her new dog, Birdie, for a walk. She decided to foster the dog, a boxer, a few days ago after a local shelter said it needed help. It was Birdie’s second walk and the dog was tugging at the leash and straining to get closer than 6 feet to all the enticing dropped items there were to smell on the Embarcadero sidewalk.
“The dog gets me out of the house and keeps me sane,” Zelada said. “Dogs get you to do things that are good for you.”
And, she added, it’s more socially acceptable to be seen in public with a dog than without one. An ordinary walk may or may not be essential, under the rules, but a dog walk is different.
With or without dog, about all there was to do on the Embarcadero was walk. Cafes, coffee bars and restaurants were shuttered. The Exploratorium science museum was shut. Street performers weren’t performing. Muni vehicles passed by, largely empty. The sun peeked out from behind clouds to inspect the unusual state of affairs, then went back into hiding.
Elsewhere along the waterfront, groups of people were gathering — and trying to keep their distance — at Crissy Field, Crissy Beach, Baker Beach and Fort Funston.
But while visitors to San Francisco’s waterfront appeared to obey the new rules, others who crowded up the coast Saturday huddled too close, prompting Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle to tweet a plea for them leave.
“Please stay at home!” the sheriff wrote.
As for the buying of vegetables and other groceries, it was not lost on folks along San Francisco’s Embarcadero that the usually mundane chore was the lone reason to be outdoors, that it constituted an essential activity and, as such, had become moments to cherish.
Greengrocer Ian Stewart of
Knoll Farms said his wholesale customers had vanished and that his business now consisted largely of garlic and green onion sales to individuals. He said he no longer allows customers to feel the goods on spec. If you touch an onion, he said, you’ve made a commitment. It’s your onion.
“That’s the way we have to do it now,” he said. “Our customers understand.”
Jen Musty, owner of Batter Bakery, was selling $3.50 chocolate chip cookies from her stand. Normally she handles cookies with tongs but now each is wrapped and sealed, and her hands are gloved.
“People are thinking hard right now about what’s essential,” she said. “Cookies are essential. Buying a cookie and going for a walk while eating your cookie, that’s essential.”
Steve Rubenstein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: srubenstein@sfchronicle. com Twitter: @SteveRubeSF