It’s no secret that eager businesspersons and customers have been complicit in bringing an indefinite quarantine back to Los Angeles, shortly after a brief respite.

1. California Restaurants Shut
Down Indefinitely
It’s no secret that eager businesspersons and customers have been
complicit in bringing an indefinite quarantine back to Los Angeles, shortly
after a brief respite. On July 13th, Governor Gavin Newsom announced that
California would close indoor operations across the state, including
restaurants, wineries and bars. Recent data shows a stark increase in
hospitalizations as well as overall positivity rates; California just crested
7,000 coronavirus-related deaths and 8,000 new cases in a single day.
On July 1st, Los Angeles County, among others, got the news that they
would have three more weeks of shutdowns after a very brief reopening
period. Though some disappointment quickly arose, businesses of all kinds
looked forward to getting back to business soon. Thus not everyone was
pleased when, not even two weeks later, the state government decided to
stretch out those closures indefinitely for every city. Including food service,
Newsom’s tweet announcing the decision also mentioned that movie
theaters, zoos, museums and “family entertainment” venues will close
indoor operations, among others. Every county in California will shut down
a lot of their businesses for the foreseeable future.
Though disappointing, the news isn’t a total surprise; although the
shutdown presents major issues for Los Angeles restaurants who were
beginning to get back into their workflow, even though those businesses
are partially responsible for the blow. On Friday, June 19th, restaurants and
other nonessential businesses in the county were greenlit to resume
in-person operations, a major advantage for those struggling to stay afloat

2. after only offering takeout and delivery services for months on end. Other
California counties had been open for weeks already.
Of course the good news couldn’t last: Just two weeks later, California
closed down all its cities after seeing the spike in COVID-19 cases that
occurred from those few short weeks of normal operations. This time, the
closures were only portended to last three weeks. However in the past two
weeks since then, hospitalizations around California have risen 28% and
ICU admissions have gone up 20%.
It’s not just L.A.: Numbers have risen all over the state. The past two weeks
showed a steady increase in daily new cases which can’t be entirely
attributed to more testing: Positivity rates measure the amount of positive
COVID-19 tests compared to negative ones, and that statistic has been
rising too. In the past week alone, positivity rates increased 7.7%, a steep
setback after only seven days. It’s a bad omen for what Californian
healthcare systems will face in the coming weeks.
Can restaurants be trusted to reopen, or will this happen every time a state
chooses the economy over basic safety? Over the last weekend in June,
health inspectors dropped in on thousands of L.A. restaurants and bars to
see how well they followed coronavirus-related protocol. There, they found
that:
One-third of restaurants and almost half of all bars didn’t social distance
inside their establishments.
44% of restaurants and 54% of bars didn’t enforce face masks or protective
coverings.
Most commonly, restaurants violated the order to put up proper signage
detailing safety guidelines for customers.

3. Additionally, the state administered lax punishment for violations.
Restaurants might have been shut down after multiple visits and citations,
but overall health inspectors took an education-based approach. They
advised onsite managers how to resolve infractions but rarely issued
violation orders, and even when they did, those orders didn’t include a fine
so there was very little incentive to follow the rules. Even when a restaurant
eventually got shut down, it could take weeks from the initial
citation—while in the meantime, they potentially spread COVID-19 to
thousands and thousands of people. Monitoring one establishment for
weeks on end also causes a significant drain on the Department of Public
Health’s resources.
Last week, Janice Hahn and Sheila Kuehl from the LA County Board of
Supervisors proposed a motion to rectify this oversight. The plan, which
initially had two weeks to include a solidified enforcement strategy, went
like so:
Proposed fines at the first violation found by an environmental health
inspector.
Fines on every business that the DPH has the authority to impose them on.
Set protocol for how to move forward after a noncompliant business is
fined at the first offense, including how to handle subsequent infractions.
If inspectors receive complaints or find infractions after the first fine, that
restaurant could face revocation of their business permit or liquor license
as early as the second violation. This, as well as the size of the initial fine,
depends on where the noncompliance issue lies, the maximum occupancy
of the business and how severe the risk is to public health. Though the
rules would have been applicable to any business caught violating the
rules, restaurants were particularly worried because of the toll that months

4. of shutdown orders had taken on an industry that already operated off of
thin profit margins.
The board still had a week left to decide how best to make the punishment
fit the crime, though with restaurants closed indefinitely, it’s unclear
whether they’re moving forward with their proposition at all. It would
certainly be useful for the future: When restaurants eventually open back
up, whether in a few weeks or many months from now, there needs to be
protocols in place so that businesses can operate more safely. California
doesn’t have the resources to handle infractions the way that it has, giving
three or four warnings without consequences when restaurants should
have met these basic standards before reopening in the first place. We
can’t keep going through this same exact cycle every couple of months;
this proposition would be one way to mitigate that to some degree.
Of course, shutting down for an unspecified length of time renders
concerns about fines obsolete. Restaurants should treat that worry as a
warning sign of the distant future, something to keep in mind when they
finally get to open again. For now, weathering the worst of the ongoing
pandemic should be everyone’s paramount concern.
In the meantime, state officials are more worried about the immediate
future of their citizens. On Friday, health experts estimated that the county
only has 113 ICU beds left for a populace that stands ten million strong. Test
results are getting delayed again as the healthcare system becomes
overwhelmed, and politicians still struggle to balance health and safety
over saving face in a climate where wearing a mask has somehow become
a divisive issue.
Clearly something has got to change. Whether California will take this
opportunity to implement long-term structural change to the food service

5. industry and the legislation surrounding it, or if other states will follow its
lead and close down completely, too.