Quint
Footballguy
obviously, my answer here is a guess since i don't sit in on meetings with the decision-makers at the State or County:
implementing the suggestions i outlined above would require granular evaluation of a complex situation and with the C-19 numbers we are seeing in CA time is of the essence. issuing blanket directives saves time, but at the expense of business owners and their employees (and again, i'm speaking specifically to the restaurant/service industry). the restaurants and businesses who are compliant with the Outdoor Only directives have in many cases spent hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to improve and upgrade their facilities to adhere to the safety protocols so they can accommodate and serve guests who choose to visit their establishment. and this goes beyond just materials and labor for construction, it also includes getting permits issued by various agencies, training staff on best practices, marketing and outbound messaging to guests (remember: everything in CA is "by appointment" or "by reservation" for those following the rules) to keep them up-to-date with regard to new guidelines being issued on a seemingly daily basis, and deal with the uncertainty and chaos this causes.
and to use a specific to prove a generality: back in late-May before The Re-Opening orders were issued for CA, i sat in on a webinar hosted by the Wine Institute who was providing info on what we might expect to see in terms of guidelines for a re-opening. in a nutshell, they noted that restaurants were going to be green-lit for "dine in" service during Phase I (remember the simpler times, where we had Phases?) while wineries, breweries, and distilleries were not. wineries, my industry, were going to be allowed to open only if the following criteria was met:
1) provide outdoor service only (no indoor tastings)
2) provide alcohol in conjunction with a meal
3) sell alcohol at the end of the experience [and of course social distancing in place, masks, cleaning, the usual]
now, that sounds reasonable considering we were still learning about C-19 and how it was being spread. but here's the rub: there was no definition of what constituted a "meal" and the ABC and local agencies provided vague language at best. as the webinar progressed and the hosts started taking questions, they revealed the Dept. of Health pushed for the "wine with a meal" provision and left it intentionally vague because they didn't want people coming to Wine Country yet for wine tasting. They believed people would be so energized to get out of the house they would travel from all over (i.e. "hot spots") which could raise the infection rates, which had been fairly low in our County since the beginning. They didn't believe people will travel to Wine Country for restaurants, so they could begin dine-in service immediately. I saw the logic in this, and of course it was not presented to the public like this in any way, shape, or form. the message was simply "flatten the curve". eventually we were allowed to re-open on June 10, and the "wine-with-a-meal" provision was scrapped within 48 hours of the re-open order being issued. go figure.
i point this out to show how early on, there was some thoughtfulness applied to how shutdown/re-open directives were applied...even if i disagreed with how the application was presented and which businesses were disproportionately negatively affected. now, we don't see any surgical application of directives, it's simply the State saying, "We're doing this and you must comply" without any nuance or consideration for how different areas of the State are handling the spread of C-19. surely, there are some business owners who either DGAF or don't have the assets to properly adhere to the Outdoor Only Order, and those are the folks who are mucking it up for those who care about the health and safety of their teams, guests, and community at large.
tl;dr - stopping C-19 spread is a priority and it's easier to just shut everything in the service/hospitality sector down rather than take a deep-dive into what measures could be implemented to save small businesses.
