California’s reopening in Sonoma County more like turning up a dimmer than flipping a switch

Lora Brenner had never met the first customer who walked into her Santa Rosa furniture store on Tuesday morning, but the woman was so excited by the arrival of California’s long-awaited reopening that she gave Brenner an enthusiastic hug before she headed home.

“It was a nice way to start the day,” said Brenner, who has worked at Old Town Furniture on Fourth Street for 30 years.

But over at Oliver’s Market in the Montecito Shopping Center, the scene looked much as it has for months, with the vast majority of shoppers sporting face masks as they pushed their carts through the grocery store’s aisles.

Store manager Frank Camilleri said he was surprised by the small number of those who went maskless. By about noon, he had only seen three unmasked shoppers.

“It doesn’t look like things have changed that much,” Camilleri said. “It’s 99% of people just doing this.”

And so began the next stage of getting back to normal from the coronavirus pandemic, which on Tuesday in Sonoma County felt more like turning up a dimmer switch as opposed to flipping the lights back on to February 2020. The new rules allowed businesses to return to pre-pandemic capacity limits, but even that progress was subdued because many businesses are operating at reduced capacity as they struggle to find workers.

One of the Oliver’s customers who remained masked was Sandi McGuire of Santa Rosa, who kept her mask in place as she guided her cart through the parking lot. State and county rules allow fully vaccinated people like McGuire to finally ditch face coverings inside almost all businesses.

“It doesn’t bother me to wear a mask,” McGuire said. “I just want to be safe and make people feel safe. I am fine with it.”

Elsewhere, there were noticeable changes.

Back to the gym

Among the businesses most relieved about the state reopening are gyms and fitness centers, whose clients over the past year were asked to endure workouts wearing face coverings.

“People absolutely hated working out in masks,” said Sonoma Fit owner Adam Kovacs as he walked around his Highway 12 gym in Sonoma on Tuesday. “It’s just not a comfortable experience when you’re breathing hard and sweating.”

Kovacs said the end of California’s mask mandate “couldn’t come soon enough, and didn’t.”

Jett Langston welcomed his workout at Anytime Fitness at the Epicenter Sports and Entertainment complex, his first visit to a gym since March 2020.

“When you are at the gym, you can’t do anything except work out,” he said as he pedaled on the stationary bike. “When you are at home, there are a lot of distractions.”

Some customers at the gym stuck with their masks, said Dennis Johnson, vice president of operations for Anytime Fitness.

“You just can’t go from zero to 100,” Johnson said.

He said his gym lost a lot of members during the pandemic but is slowly recovering. It was nowhere near capacity on Tuesday.

Like others, Johnson said he was relieved that he didn’t have to enforce rules anymore under California’s tiered system of health and safety protocols that mostly went away on Tuesday with the exception of sectors like hospitals and public transportation and prisons. “The mask police pressure is gone a little bit,” he said.

The reopening did come with one large exception as workers still had to wear masks — but that is likely to quickly change. Cal/OSHA, which has jurisdiction over workplace safety rules, is expected to approve a rule on Thursday to drop that requirement. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he will sign an executive order to allow the rule to take effect so workers could shed their masks if they are fully vaccinated unless specifically required by their employer.

Different approaches, feet apart

At El Mercadito Roseland, the site of the former Dollar Tree on Sebastopol Avenue, the varying attitudes on the state’s changing COVID-19 rules were clear among the small-business owners who share the space inside.

Jose Garcia, who runs JC’s Discount, an electronics business on the west corner of the store, wore a gray fabric mask as he repaired the circuit board for a piece of audio equipment. Though he’s been vaccinated, he knows there’s still a small chance he could contract the coronavirus from any one of the clients who enters the store.

About 15 steps away, Janet Sanchez, who sells artisan clothes and items from Mexico at the store, organized merchandise on a rack sans mask. She hoped the state’s reversal of the mask mandate would encourage more clients to visit her business.

“Now we’re seeing, even if they’re not buying, they’re coming out,” Sanchez said. “The vaccine is giving a lot of people confidence.”

Personal cups and no more stickers

The team at Retrograde Coffee in Sebastopol was excited to accept personal cups for the first time since the pandemic hit. The downtown shop didn’t undergo a drastic makeover upon the reopening. Shop owners Casey Lanski and Danielle Connor removed the mandatory social distancing stickers that dotted the café floors for the past year, as well as the “masks required” inside signs from the door.

“You can take your masks off inside now,” Lanski said.

The baristas are still wearing masks, Lanski added, as he noted their customer base isn’t quite ready to go completely maskless.

“We want people to feel comfortable,” Lanski said.

Following workers’ lead

Camilleri, the Oliver’s manager, said he thought the large percentage of customers who kept their masks on Tuesday also wanted to be respectful to employees like him who still had to wear them. “When they are walking in and see all of us with masks on … I’ve seen people just put them on,” he said.

Still, there were some inside Oliver’s who felt safe without masks, especially as Sonoma County has 64% of the population of 12 years and older who are fully vaccinated and another 9% partially vaccinated. Those local figures have smashed President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% of adults receiving at least one shot by the Fourth of July in the quest to get to herd immunity.

“I feel completely safe. I am surprised that there are so many people wearing masks,” said Roger Ellman of Santa Rosa, who shopped without a mask and said he was fully vaccinated.

“I am no more at risk than I was three years ago or will be a year from now from the general vicissitudes of life,” Ellman said.

But nearby, Kathy Bellino strongly disagreed in her mask as she has seen firsthand the suffering caused by the coronavirus as a nurse at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. “It is being thoughtful of other people who maybe haven’t been vaccinated for whatever reason,” Bellino said. “It’s about the safety of other people.”

Barry Hayes of Palo Alto also agreed with that sentiment, which is more common in the progressive North Bay as opposed to other more conservative parts of the country where mask wearing has sparked angry confrontations. Hayes said he felt mask wearing was matter of respect for others, especially for workers, as he stopped in at the Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa to pick up some go-to beers.

“I wear my mask as a courtesy as more than anything else,” said Hayes, who is fully vaccinated. “It also keeps me from being mistaken as a Trump supporter.”

Slow transition back

Even with the milestone on Tuesday, things are still not back to normal. Russian River’s downtown brewpub is still about 85% capacity from before the pandemic, though it has been helped by outdoor parklet seating. The brewpub also will add some stools at its bar by the end of the month, though that is dependent on finding more workers, said co-owner Natalie Cilurzo. “We all are very eager to have a seat at the bar again,” Cilurzo said.

One local business that particularly suffered during COVID-19 was the Epicenter, which only had some of its business open at limited capacity like the gym, Victory House Sports Bar & Restaurant and its game arcade. Its popular indoor soccer fields had been closed until Tuesday night. The reopening will attract hundreds of more people into the facility. There are 162 adult teams slated to play games at Epicenter this summer, said Jenny Ogston, general manager. About 800 to 1,000 people would come through the complex daily before the coronavirus.

“Pre-pandemic, this is kind of a hub, particularity during the week and in the evenings,” Ogston said of the soccer fields.

Brad Bergum, chief financial officer of the Epicenter, said the business was able to survive with federal Paycheck Protection Program loans and additional funding from its ownership group to be able to make through the past 15 months. “That’s put us on a path where we feel good about the future now,” Bergum said.

Staff Writer Nashelly Chavez, Sonoma Index-Tribune Managing Editor Lorna Sheridan and Sonoma County Gazette Publisher Amie Windsor contributed to this report.