Long Beach businesses—especially restaurants—felt a twin blow from the COVID-19 pandemic this week, with back-to-back orders constricting them more and more tightly, leaving some feeling frustrated and anxious about whether their businesses can survive.
On Saturday, a state-mandated curfew meant restaurants, bars and other eateries couldn’t offer any on-site dining after 10 p.m. And today, Los Angeles County clamped down even further, banning dine-in completely and limiting them to take-out and delivery only—rules Long Beach also plans to institute—starting Wednesday night.
Luis Navarro, owner of three Long Beach restaurants, including Lola’s Mexican Cuisine and Portuguese Bend Distilling, said the news was painful. He and other restaurant owners relied on outdoor dining to barely break even, fund payroll and pay rent to landlords who he said were “breathing down our necks.”
“A lot of the businesses were scraping by already,” Navarro said. He called the countywide closures a “death sentence” for many restaurants, especially since customers can simply travel to bordering Orange County, which still allows outdoor dining before 10 p.m.
“I feel that it needs to be an even closure,” Navarro said. He called the financial future of restaurants grim without the prospect of a bailout. He urged Long Beach residents to buy local.
Health officials have cast the ever-tightening restrictions this week as a temporary measure meant to get the virus under control in order to stave off more drastic clamp-downs like a blanket stay-at-home order for nonessential workers.
“Workers and small businesses across the country are counting on us to do the right thing. Mask up. Don’t gather,” Mayor Robert Garcia tweeted Sunday afternoon. “The sooner we get COVID19 under control the sooner we can get our economy working.”
Garcia has praised the statewide curfew instituted by Gov. Gavin Newsom, and on Sunday night, Long Beach officials announced they will align with county rules and shut down in-person dining for at least three weeks. The orders will take effect at 10 p.m. Wednesday.
In announcing the decision, Long Beach officials pointed to a 120% increase in local coronavirus cases over the past two weeks. And since Nov. 1, COVID-19 hospitalizations have increased 200% in the city, according to the announcement.
Health officials say bars and restaurants have been in their crosshairs in an attempt to shut down situations where people are mixing and not wearing their face coverings—especially later at night when alcohol is involved.
Outside The 4th Horseman bar just off Pine Avenue, 27-year-old North Long Beach resident Alan Noyola said he’d recently worked around the new curfew restrictions by just drinking earlier—just past 3:35 p.m. to be exact. Usually, he’d arrive there at least three hours later.
He said the incoming ban on all in-person dining unfortunately gives him less of a chance to socialize with friends. “I’ll respect it,” he said about the rules, reflecting on how his cousin likely contracted the virus from frequenting different bars in Las Vegas.
Some restaurants have escaped the worst to this point. The 4th Horseman owner Jeremy Schott said with a calmness that his business so far is OK: “Yeah, we’re fine.”
But others in the industry have said they’re already surviving off reserves. As the rules began tightening last week, the general manager of Boathouse on the Bay and part owner of Legends Sports Bar, John Morris, predicted “many ugly business closures” by the end of December.
Eating a late lunch at Hamburger Mary’s in Downtown on Sunday, Cesar Lopez said he hopes the restrictions mean the region can get through this stretch of the outbreak as quickly as possible.
“I think we need, like, a real lockdown,” said Joseph Lopez, Cesar’s husband. If it means staying home for two to three weeks for the sake of people’s health, he’ll comply.
“Whatever it takes.”
Columnist Tim Grobaty contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story was updated to show Long Beach will also suspend in-person dining.