In News: Fans coping with not being able to attend 49ers’ opener.
Like some diehard 49ers fans, Candy Finley didn’t feel like leaving her house after the team’s crushing Super Bowl loss in February. So, for three months she didn’t. After flying home from the game in Miami, the longtime 49ers season ticket holder decided she wasn’t going anywhere.
This wasn’t an irrational act of a despondent fanatic, though. This was the calculated move of a longtime medical professional preparing for something far worse than her favorite team losing the big game.
Finley, a clinical nurse educator and admitted germaphobe, already was worried about a virus most of the country hadn’t even heard about in the early days of February. It’s why she spent so much time cleaning seats around
her at the Super Bowl with disinfectant wipes.
“I’ve worked in nursing for 29 years, and I told people then, ‘They don’t tell you everything because of panic or fear, but this is worse than what you think,’ ” Finley said by phone from her home in Temecula.
Fast forward seven months to our new reality amid the coronavirus, and the 49ers’ season opener Sunday against Arizona will be the first game since Levi’s Stadium opened in 2014 that Finley won’t be in her seat in Section 123, Row 34.
It will sit empty like the rest of the nearly 70,000 seats not occupied by cardboard cutouts because of state and Santa Clara County public health restrictions prohibiting large gatherings.
Watching the Chiefs open the season on national television Thursday night was a painful reminder to another impassioned 49ers season ticket holder, and not just because Kansas City denied the 49ers a Super Bowl victory months ago.
“They have fans there in their stadium! Why can’t we go?” said Abdul Momeni, of Gilroy, before answering his own question. “I know it’s politics and (Gov.) Gavin (Newsom) isn’t allowing it, and rightly so. But it’s hard. You can’t even go
right now.”
Life at Levi’s will become strange Sunday. (Even stranger if AirNow’s air quality index forecast of acceptable air proves inaccurate, and the game is delayed or postponed.) But no matter how unrecognizable the games will be without fans — the lifeblood of any NFL experience — the games will continue. No one is happy about keeping people out of stadiums, but most everyone understands why it has to be.
For some, it’s a matter of life and death.
“I’d love to be there, but I have a medical condition where if I was to catch COVID it would probably kill me,” said Richard Caviteno, a fan since 1980 and a season ticket holder who’ll still miss his home away from home in Section 143. For others, it really isn’t. “I can’t tell you how many phone calls and texts I’ve gotten from people asking me if I’m gonna be OK, or how am I gonna handle not being at the game,” said Finley, who has attended every 49ers game — home and road — over the last six
years. “This truly is a dangerous pandemic, so I’d already decided I was going to forgo going to games anyway. I want everyone to stay safe.”
The 49ers are doing what they can to keep people safe, which means the fan ban will extend beyond the stadium. The team announced that, until further notice, the Levi’s Stadium parking lot will be closed before and after games to prevent tailgating or gatherings of any kind.
Nearby Tasman Drive will be closed late Saturday
night and through the end of the game Sunday. Those using the San Tomas Aquino/Saratoga Creek Trail near the stadium will encounter detours.
Just to drive the point home, the man who runs Levi’s Stadium issued a friendly request to the fans to stay away.
“The gates are going to be closed, so save yourself some time,” said Jim Mercurio, the stadium’s executive vice president and general manager. “If you want to tailgate, maybe tailgate in front of your house?”
Don’t despair, though, 49ers fans. There are still some places where they’ll welcome you to participate in the communal experience of cheering on your favorite team. For the price of a beer, a burger or a slice, there are some old 49ers fans hangouts whose doors will be open for you Sunday.
Jackie Graham, the coowner of the Sports Page Bar & Grill in Mountain View, is more used to the sport called “football” in her homeland of Ireland. She may not know the difference between a neutral zone infraction and a false start, but who cares? She’s got three 86-inch TVs outside on the patio that will be tuned in to the 49ers game, like always.
Plus, it sounds as if she’ll have room for more than a few socially distanced groups at her pub just off Highway 101.
“We’re in a little different
situation than most other sports bars — we have a very large patio,” said Graham, who said, like many other bars and restaurants, her business hasn’t been good. “We’ll be open for the games and I’m sure we’ll have some people.”
The folks running the Valley Tavern on 24th Street in San Francisco, another popular gathering spot for 49ers fans, got creative enough to allow fans to congregate again on Sundays.
By partnering with Paxti’s Pizza next door, Valley Tavern is compliant with the city’s COVID guidelines and is now considered a restaurant offering outside dining. The Tavern will have decent space for fans with 12 tables and five TVs set up on its patio.
But they’re expecting their regular influx of football fans, so you’d better get there early, warned manager Brittney Freed. Just not too early. In order to accommodate the maximum amount of fans, patrons won’t be able to stay for the morning game and the 49ers game.
“Otherwise the regulars would stay all day,” Freed said. “And we just don’t have the space.”
Still, no matter how comfortable the accommodations, the rabid 49ers fans will tell you there’s not a bar, restaurant or a socialdistanced watch party that can compare to being at Levi’s when the 49ers take the field.