‘Can we get some clarity on outdoor dining, please?’
Varying state and county rules create confusion for restaurant owners, diners
Monday’s lunch hour in Silicon Valley captured perfectly what has become a head-spinning patchwork of ever-shifting state and local edicts aimed at containing the coronavirus.
In Menlo Park, diners nibbled on sandwiches and sipped wine on both the sidewalk outside, and inside some of Santa Cruz Avenue’s popular lunch spots.
Just across the border in Santa Clara County, where all signs indicate the coronavirus is no more threatening than in neighboring San Mateo County, indoor dining is still forbidden by local order. But lunch crowds dined outdoors along University Avenue in Palo Alto, oblivious that state authorities over the weekend had cracked down on restaurants in other parts of Santa Clara County to say they could only serve takeout.
Try putting that on a menu. “There is confusion, that’s for sure,”
said Oren’s Hummus owner David Cohen, who was taking his chances and serving lunch alfresco to diners who filled half his outdoor tables to savor gyros, wraps and Mediterranean salads.
A spring that saw local and state officials move swiftly and in near unison to impose strict lockdowns to flatten the rising curve of COVID-19 infections has turned into a summer of fragmented reopening. With new cases and hospitalizations rising in much of the state, counties have chosen their own rules and pace to open for business.
Bewilderingly, all that changed over the weekend. After weeks of deference to local control, Gov. Gavin New
som over the Fourth of July weekend sent armed state agents to warn 6,000 restaurants of violations for serving food on-site.
On Friday evening, the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control sent officers to restaurants in Morgan Hill and Gilroy telling owners they had to cease outdoor dining under a July 1 order by Newsom, stunning local officials who said they were not alerted beforehand.
That order was aimed at reining in outbreaks in counties that were on a state watchlist for worrisome outbreak trends and required them to cease indoor dining for three weeks.
Santa Clara County had been on that watchlist due to rising COVID-19 hospitalizations. The county was removed from that list Monday.
Nevertheless, the California Department of Public Health said Santa Clara County still must obtain state permission before allowing outdoor dining. Santa Clara County Executive Jeff Smith said the state’s reopening rules didn’t clearly indicate that Sacramento’s blessing was required.
“Typically if it doesn’t mention it, the local public health officer has control over it,” Smith said, adding the county now is awaiting word from the state on its request for approval. “It’s in the state’s hands at this point.”
Adding to the frustration, the different dining rules for neighboring San Mateo and Santa Clara counties seem to have little connection to coronavirus outbreaks. Santa Clara County, with 2 1/2 times the population of San Mateo County, has had fewer COVID-19 cases and fatalities per 100,000 residents. And the rate of positive test results in Santa Clara County — a key metric watched by Newsom — is 2.67%, compared with 4.9% in San Mateo County.
Outdoor dining also is allowed in Los Angeles County, even though it has about four times as many cases and deaths per 100,000 residents. Its positive test rate is 7.3%.
“At the end of the day, our numbers are better than the top 10 most populated counties in California,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Mike Wasserman said.
Santa Clara County officials have taken a more cautious approach to reopening, arguing other areas were moving too quickly and risking a surge of new cases, and have not sought state approval through a “variance” to allow indoor restaurant dining. But the county in a revised health order June 5 did allow outdoor dining.
And then the armed agents showed up in south county on Friday night.
Local restaurant owners are baffled.
“If they shut us down, that’s really rude,” said Helen Nguyen, who was continuing to offer outdoor dining Monday at her Pho Ha Noi restaurants in Cupertino and San Jose until told otherwise. “It’s really stressful on a business owner right now. We don’t know what’s going on.”
There were no indications that the weekend crackdown was leading restaurants to close for lunch Monday, but business owners urged local officials for help.
“Can we get some clarity on outdoor dining, please?” the South First Arts District in downtown San Jose asked on Twitter.
In Morgan Hill, Dan McCranie, the owner of the Ladera Grill, which was visited by state ABC agents on Friday night, said he has continued to stay open regardless.
“I didn’t consider the Friday announcement from the two agents without any documentation valid, so I’ve been open,” McCranie said, adding it has a “monstrous effect” on business.
Diners have been left to make their own risk assessments.
“I wouldn’t eat indoors even if it’s allowed,” said Ann Farnham, who was eating outside at Menlo Park Italian restaurant Roma with her husband, Ray, who added: “It’s what makes good sense, not what the letter of the rules say.”
But nearby at the Left Bank, Francis Hunter was comfortable dining in.
“I’m glad they’re finally open,” Hunter said. “I feel pretty safe about it.”
So do restaurant owners such as McCranie in the county next door. “I’m frankly going to continue to be noisy until it gets resolved.”