Reopening: Gyms, salons start allowing customers inside in San Francisco.
Longshuttered businesses beginning to stir
Thrilled at the prospect of working out in a real gym after nearly six months of shelter in place, Blair MarleyPerez was knocking on the door of 24 Hour Fitness’ California Street gym in downtown San Francisco at 5 a.m. Monday.
After she was told the gym wouldn’t actually open for another two hours, she walked around the quiet Financial District. It was the first time she had left her Alamo Square home to do something other than grocery shopping since midMarch, she said. She was back at 7, unfazed by the ghosttown atmosphere.
“Just coming here this morning and doing an hour of weights, I feel amazing,” she said.
Thousands of San Francisco businesses were allowed to reopen Monday, an opening embraced by business owners and customers alike despite little guidance and only a few days’ warning, following a nearly sixmonth shuttering. The weather eased a bit, with a hint of blue showing through the haze.
The city had flirted with reopening a broad set of businesses in June, before a coronavirus surge put those plans on hold. The rules shifted abruptly in the past week, following a move by the state to liberalize restrictions for counties, like San Francisco, that met new health goals for combating the pandemic. Gyms and salons, closed for almost half a year, were told they could operate outdoors Sept. 8. Two days later, they learned they could soon open indoor operations.
Though they were allowed to open Monday morning, guidance for how to operate wasn’t released until midday. The fitness and personal care operators went about business anyway, following what rules were
available: lower capacity, distance between customers and strict attention to sanitation. Indoor massage, tattoo and piercing parlors were also allowed, and outdoor family entertainment centers, drivein movies, and tour buses and boats were permitted to reopen.
“People are scrambling to pivot really quickly,” said Meredith Klausner, regional vice president of 24 Hour Fitness of San Ramon, which opened five San Francisco locations Monday and will return to 5 a.m.9 p.m. service Tuesday. “After all of the ups and downs, at some point, you just take what you can get.”
For gyms, that meant masks and 6 to 12foot distancing; 10% capacity; closed locker rooms, showers, saunas and pools; and tons of disinfectant. Staff followed around gymgoers with sanitizing solutions, but the masked and distanced 24 Hour Fitness members Monday wiped down their own equipment after each use as well.
Sanitation seemed to be a byword Monday. Ahmet Giftgi spent the entire weekend cleaning the barbershop he’s owned in the Financial District for 33 years, and he sent an employee back to do one more swipe before he accepted his first client Monday.
“Even though it’s going to be slow for a while, because so many of our clients are working from home, I’d rather this than being closed. I’m happy about that,” Giftgi said as his phone rang to schedule appointments for the week.
Some nail salon owners are taking a measured approach to the reopening, like Annie Stancliffe, owner of High Five, a nail salon north of the Panhandle neighborhood.
There’s an alreadybooked event this weekend offering free manicures to essential workers; a “preview week” beginning Sept. 24 for clients who had to rebook previously canceled appointments; and an official reopening to the public on Oct. 1.
“We’re opening with indoor and outdoor options, and we’re primed to be ready to pivot to either/or, depending on air quality and if restrictions to operate indoors come up again,” Stancliffe said.
The tourism sector is also adapting on the fly. Hotels, previously limited to housing health care workers, those traveling on essential business and a few other specified categories of guests, were given the green light to open reservations to tourists, a core customer base for the city’s hospitality sector. But not all hotels were ready to welcome them.
Hotel Zephyr at Fisherman’s Wharf said on a recorded phone message that it has suspended all services through Oct. 1, though customers can still book reservations online for later dates.
The plunge in tourism and business travel has left the industry reeling and thousands out of a job.
“The last few months have been very difficult,” said Kevin Carroll, CEO of the Hotel Council of San Francisco, a trade organization. “Financially, it’s been devastating.”
Carroll estimates that occupancy rates now are 15% compared with 85% a year ago, and job prospects for the approximately 25,000 workers in the sector, a majority of whom have been laid off, are dim. He said a full recovery is expected to be three to four years out, considering there’s still widespread nervousness around traveling.
San Francisco Movie Tours reduced its fleet to a single 13passenger van. The company will initially offer private tours, with a minimum of two guests.
“We are very excited about this reopening, although we don’t expect much revenue between now and summer 2021,” said owner Bryan Rice, who struggled after he wasn’t able to secure a Paycheck Protection Program loan. He’s now operating out of a Ford Transit van that will be cleaned after each tour and include plexiglass between the driver and passengers.
MarleyPerez tried to rent a UHaul vehicle this weekend to move a couch, but because so many people are moving out of San Francisco, it was impossible. But even as that thought and the smokeclogged air hung over her, she emerged from 24 Hour Fitness with a new perspective, she said.
“I wiped down every machine and tried to be really meticulous about being super clean,” she said. “If we can all do that, because we’re all so excited, we can find a way to reopen and stay open.”