Garcetti: Runyon Canyon Park Reopens, In-Person Shopping Allowed Wednesday
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — In his Tuesday briefing, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that Runyon Canyon had reopened and said that all retail establishments within the city of Los Angeles can reopen Wednesday for in-person shopping, following county guidance.
"With the proper safety measures and with extraordinary caution, we can now go back into all stores," he said. "As I said, the reality is that since the beginning of this crisis, people could get clothes, beauty supplies, sporting goods, shoes, furniture during this emergency as long as it was in stores that were either pharmacies or grocery stores."
Garcetti said closures had disproportionately impacted small businesses and locally owned shops, even as larger retailers such as Target and Costco were allowed to remain open for business.
"They have suffered and many are on the point of not coming back," he said. "We know how to shop safer, we have learned a lot about social distancing, wearing our masks and making sure that we follow the protocols for washing our hands, but it's time to make sure we don't punish our local stores and begin to fortify, again, our main streets."
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The new order does not apply to barber shops, hair and nail salons or dine-in eating at local restaurants — all of which remain closed. Garcetti also said that just because businesses could reopen does not mean that they must rush to reopen. More information about guidelines for reopening can be found online.
Garcetti also said that houses of worship would be allowed to reopen, though they must not exceed 25% capacity or 100 people — whichever is fewer.
The mayor also announced that the popular Runyon Canyon Park reopened Tuesday for single-direction active use. He said counters had been put in place and parks employees would be on hand to ensure there were not too many people on the trail at once.
"Enjoy it," Garcetti said. "It's back. It's one of the greatest places in L.A."
The mayor said the city and county have been able to take additional steps forward because they have met a number of metrics set by the state, including stabilizing hospitalizations, flattening the percentage of people testing positive for the novel coronavirus, increasing testing capacity, implementing robust contact tracing, ensuring sufficient health care staffing, having the ability to surge hospital intake if necessary and having outbreak prevention and containment in place for skilled nursing facilities.
"The bottom line is, we have earned these steps," Garcetti said. "We would never, I said, take steps forward one day earlier than we should, but also not one day later than we should."
