May 5, 2020 — In preparation for Phase Two of the state’s limited economic reopening, scheduled to start Friday, public health officer Dr. Noemi Doohan has released a redline draft of the county’s new health order. That order eases quite a few restrictions on retail, construction and recreation, including summer camp for small groups of kids. People will be allowed to drive up to 50 miles to enjoy golf courses, dog parks, and all outdoor recreation sites, including navigable waterways, as long as the owner, operator, or agency in charge of the facility gives the go-ahead.
Allowances for construction have been expanded, as long as the construction site can follow a detailed safety protocol. Curbside pickup will lose the illicit air it had for the last few weeks, since that practice, and manufacturing, will now be allowed, as long as its practitioners can adhere to CDC reopening guidance.
Everyone is still supposed to shelter in place. But businesses that are lower risk or can operate outdoors while maintaining social distancing, facial coverings, and sanitation protocols will join essential businesses in resuming some activities.
That’s good news for John Strangio, one of the owners of the Ukiah Valley Athletic Club. Gyms won’t be getting the green light in this phase of the reopening, but Strangio, like business owners in a lot of sectors these days, is coming up with proposals he hopes will pass muster with the health officer sooner rather than later. He threw down a sanitation gauntlet for the essential businesses that have remained open. “Most stores don’t have attendants,” he said. “They wipe down your shopping cart for you. But I’ve never seen anybody wiping down a handle in any of the freezer sections in any of the stores I’ve gone to, where everybody’s touching them. Here, we supply them with cleaning stuff, so they clean everything right when they’re done. We also have staff that go in there and clean everything when they’re done...I would challenge any store, any facility, to a clean test.”
There is minimal activity going on at the gym right now, with physical therapy for post-op patients. And Strangio is spiffing up a few things and attending to some deferred maintenance that’s easier when no one is around.
His seventy-six employees are among the people who are not at the gym. “A lot of our employees are going stir crazy,” he reported. “A lot of people who work at a gym are those type of people that are very active, always going...and so when you take that part of them away, both their workout ability but then also their work ability, it really has hit a lot of them on a very high level.”
But not everyone at the gym is a fitness expert. Many of the members have physical ailments that prevent them from doing land-based exercises. They rely on the heated indoor pool to stay active, and Strangio is worried that their physical and mental health is deteriorating.
The latest order includes a few amendments to a dense two-page social distancing and hygiene protocol for businesses to follow if they operate in a physical location in the presence of other people. And the West Business Development Center has drafted a business roundtable report, full of suggestions from local small business leaders about how they can position themselves as lower risk enterprises. Strangio made his pitch, listing the strict hygiene and screening protocols he’s prepared to implement, from closing the gym for an hour in the middle of the day for cleaning, to thermal imaging and taking members’ temperatures before they are allowed to come in. And, like restaurants, which are likely to run at half capacity when they open up in Phase Three, Strangio is prepared to reduce capacity by blacking out every other treadmill, so members can maintain social distancing while they work out.
Business at the health club was great, up until just a few weeks ago. Strangio was planning to open another gym, a 24-hour Crossfit studio, on the north end of town on April 1st. And during the power shutoff in October, the poolside lawn and wisteria-draped shade structures became a de facto office for people whose businesses had gone dark. Now, he’s promising to eliminate day use passes, which have made it easy for travelers along the 101 corridor to pull into a spacious parking lot just off the exit to Boonville and have a quick swim in that outdoor pool, one of the few in the region that’s open year round. He’s in a position no business owner ever expects: instead of offering as much as he can to draw customers, he’s offering as little as possible in hopes of maybe opening the doors. He’s offering to eliminate the two hours of daily childcare that’s part of the membership, or adjust it according to the protocol for kids’ programs. And he’s ready to take about a hundred group fitness classes completely off the schedule.
One thing is certain, though: “I just miss our members,” he said. “Even the ones that completely drive us nuts.”