Los Angeles – California restaurants have developed a plan that they can reopen to eat indoors applying certain precautionary measures, but without the provisions in force in other states such as taking the temperature of customers or reducing the number of tables.
The recommendations, obtained by The Associated Press, will be delivered to Governor Gavin Newsom on Thursday. They involve a radical change in the habit of eating in restaurants, a world dependent on face-to-face conversations and nearby chairs that must now adapt to measures to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Under the new rules, only members of the same family or people living together may sit together at the same table. Buffets, salad bars and shared bread baskets would be eliminated. Instead of salt shakers on the table, there will be jars of disinfectant. And the waiters will all have hygienic masks.
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Restaurants in California had to limit themselves to take-away orders in March due to regulations to counter the virus. The measure devastated that sector of the economy, pushing millions of people into the ranks of the unemployed in a state renowned for its culinary culture.
The recommendations of the California Restaurant Association, in association with the California Health Workers Conference and the Conference of Directors of Environmental Health, will give Newsom a possible framework to reopen restaurants as it plans to reopen stores. , bookstores, florists and sporting goods stores.
The association wants Newsom to outline general guidelines in four areas: staff health, social distancing, public education, and sanitation and disinfection.
Each municipality and county will be responsible for the rules for each category, since what serves in a big city like San Diego may not work in smaller towns like Eureka or Bakersfield.
The recommendations include possible measures such as the temperature taking of restaurant employees, the obligation to wash their hands and the rule of covering their faces with masks before any interaction with customers.
Regarding social distancing, local jurisdictions will have to establish specific measures on the separation of tables or on the placement of barriers between them, and ensure that only members of the same family or people who live together feel at the same table, without exceed 10 people. Also, restaurants could use phone calls or text messages to accept reservations and notify the customer that they can enter local once their table is ready.
