Modesto restaurants, retailers ready for “relief” of reopening, lifting restrictions
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Modesto Reopening Guide
This story is part of the Modesto Bee’s Reopening Guide, giving you what you need to know as the state’s economy reopens June 15. Read more of the stories here:
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When California reopens Tuesday after 15 months of imposing numerous health and safety regulations to slow the spread of COVID-19, many Central Valley restaurant and retail store owners say it will be a relief.
In Stanislaus County, business owners and their employees have largely born the brunt of enforcing the state and federal restrictions, including requiring masks, maintaining social distance, tracking capacity limits and maintaining enhanced cleaning programs. On Tuesday, most of those will go away as the state loosens up and takes a giant leap toward a post-pandemic future.
This week customers can expect some noticeable changes and a lot of business as usual at area shops and eateries. The county went into the orange tier of restrictions last week, raising capacity limits at restaurants to 50% and removing them entirely for retailers. After Tuesday there will be no more capacity limits for indoor businesses.
One of the biggest changes when the state reopens will be the mask mandates. Requiring everyone wear masks at businesses during the pandemic has been a continual flash-point between customers and employees. Local shop owners said the CDC’s surprise announcement in mid-May that masks were no longer required indoors or outdoors for vaccinated individuals reignited long-simmering tensions over masks.
The Party Guys/Grand Events owner Ray Pogue said since the CDC’s recommendations a month ago, he has had customers screaming at his workers about having to wear masks inside again – like at the start of the pandemic. Cal/OSHA and Stanislaus County have maintained their mask mandate for customers and employees since, but that changes next week.
Mask requirements cause tension at Stanislaus businesses
“(Tuesday) will be relief, just total relief. Without a doubt we’ve been stuck in the middle. Customers don’t think they need to wear masks anymore and we’re just trying to follow the rules,” he said. “If anything the vitriol has been worse than at the start. People have been way more demanding and entitled to be treated a certain way. It’s like they lost their manners after buying off Amazon for a year.”
Pogue said he will be relieved when he no longer has to deal with customers refusing to wear masks or arguing with his employees about the mandate. He plans to take down his signs about wearing masks on Tuesday.
But, employees working indoors will need to continue wearing their masks through much of this month as Cal/OSHA decided this week not to revise its rules immediately to coincide with the state’s reopening. Pogue said he had a couple questions among his 15-person staff about why they needed to continue wearing face coverings. He said as a business owner he has strictly followed the local, state and federal guidance throughout the pandemic and won’t stop now.
The state and CDC also still continues to require fully vaccinated people wear masks in certain situations including on public transit, airports and airplanes, healthcare settings, and long-term care and correctional facilities.
While social distancing will no longer be required inside his party supplies business when the state reopens, Pogue said he plans to keep the markers as they’ve become useful delineators for customers. Another COVID-19 era policy he wants to keep in place is the enhanced cleaning protocols.
Like Pogue, the owners of Modesto Sukiyaki plan to continue their hygiene and cleaning program after the state reopens. Co-owner Cheng Her said diners can expect to keep seeing regular wipe-downs of common surfaces and available hand sanitizer in the restaurant.
“We’ll keep sanitizing everything. Honestly it should have been like that from the beginning and shouldn’t take a pandemic for (businesses) to do,” he said.
His employees will also continue to wear their masks. But he hasn’t had meetings with his staff yet to discuss the pending changes, instead taking a wait-and-see approach to see what officials announce on Tuesday. He said the frequent changes to guidances and restrictions have made him wary of preparing too far in advance.
“We’ll see when it hits on the 15th. It could change, so basically we’re in a waiting game right now pretty much,” he said.
Some outdoor dining, like parklets, here to stay in Modesto
After reopening, Her said he expects the restaurant’s outdoor seating to go away. Like many restaurant operators, he has made a temporary patio on the sidewalk in front of the business. But he said his landlord didn’t want to continue to allow the outdoor dining, so he expects dining will be all indoors again soon.
But not everyone will be rushing back inside. Another COVID-19 change for restaurants you can expect to see sticking around is the parklets throughout downtown Modesto.
Josh Bridegroom, president and CEO of the Downtown Modesto Partnership, has spearheaded a program to help plan, build and pay for the extended outdoor dining areas. The city has nine parklets finished or in progress at downtown Modesto restaurants. Each takes up one to three parking spaces, and are raised and cordoned off from the street.
The parklets received temporary approval from the city, which Bridegroom said should become permanent soon. He said the city is finalizing a plan to keep the additional outdoor seating post pandemic. Businesses are currently required to carry additional insurance, ensure the parklets are ADA compliant and do not block gutter access.
“Everyone we built a parklet with wants to keep it there. Even before we started building them we said we hope we can keep this,” Bridegroom said. “This will make a tremendous difference in their bottom lines and contribute to the vibrancy downtown. There’s a real benefit to the parklets.”
The city of Modesto did not respond to a request for information on if and when the parklets would become permanent in time for publication. Bridegroom said at least four other downtown restaurants are interested in building parklets once the plan becomes permanent.
DoMo Partnership is providing up to $3,000 to businesses to help with construction and labor costs out of a $30,000 program.
Shoppers heading out to Vintage Faire Mall and other retail centers in the area will likely see some subtle changes. The county’s move from red-to-orange tiers last week lifted most capacity restrictions on malls and shopping centers already. But they are still required to keep common areas and capacity restrictions at food courts.
Vintage Faire spokesman Annie Amies had no comment when asked what would change for shoppers on Tuesday. But the center will be able to lift its mask mandate, end its social distancing restrictions and likely end all remaining customer restrictions starting next week. Employees, however, will still be required to wear masks.
As the state readies for reopening, restaurants and retailers which have experienced a roller coaster of new rules and regulations the past year are ready for what they hope will be among the last of the pandemic-era changes.
“I’m preparing the staff and we’ve read through (the state’s reopening guidance) three times. I want to make sure my staff is fine,” say Party Guy’s Pogue. “I’m not taking a sides either way (about the restrictions), but we have to play by the rules and some people don’t understand that.”
This story was originally published June 13, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
