Stores have closed at Vintage Faire Mall due to the threat of the coronavirus in Modesto, Calif., on Friday, March 20, 2020.
Stanislaus County leaders’ act of defiance on Tuesday — letting everyone know they’ll look the other way if businesses choose to reopen in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic — was a move calculated for political expediency.
Let’s consider the Board of Supervisors’ momentous vote from the perspectives of three groups most affected: business owners, potential customers (all of us), and the five board supervisors themselves.
Stanislaus companies assume all risk
Many businesses will cheer Tuesday’s vote, which assures merchants that they face no penalty from the county for reopening, as long as they don’t draw big crowds. On its face, this tacit approval seems to provide welcome relief from California Governor Gavin Newsom’s onerous shutdown order; it appears to say, “Your county leaders love you, and we have your back.”
But they don’t.
Along with the county’s see-no-evil Tuesday vote came a very clear side message, that any business operating with state licensing or permits must assume all risk for reopening. In other words, hair salons that choose to gear up will be constantly looking over their shoulders for state officers to show up and yank cosmetology licenses. The same would apply to funeral homes, restaurants serving alcohol, real estate sales, door-to-door sales and more.
Business owners already have much to consider in a reopening decision: whether idled employees, perhaps gratified with stimulus checks that are higher than normal pay, will agree to return to work, and whether customers have confidence that the coronavirus has subsided enough to patronize their business. Now these companies have the added pressure of deciding whether reopening is worth drawing the ire of a state whose criteria for reopening clearly have not been met.
Supervisors’ Tuesday vote amounts to bad parenting: “Go ahead … if you really want. But don’t say we didn’t warn you, and be ready to pay the consequences if you get caught.”
Fearful customers won’t return
At first blush, customers might feel that Tuesday’s vote will return their lives to something closer to normal. Maybe it will.
It’s also likely that many people are not yet comfortable with the idea of circulating like they used to. Fully 68% of Americans are worried about reopening too early, according to Pew Research Center’s latest national poll.
The win sought by county supervisors will be negated if people don’t vote with their feet. The success of reopening largely will be determined by people’s comfort levels. If they stay away, reopening too early does a disservice to merchants and to our local economy.
The more obvious risk is to health. If reopening too early ushers in a second wave of COVID-19 spread, people could focus on that surge without remembering why having their nails done or their dog groomed seemed so important during the lockdown. Loved ones of people who suffer in the second wave may rue the day that county supervisors found it necessary to look the other way.
Politically savvy Stanislaus supervisors
Lastly, our normally level-headed supervisors — Kristin Olsen, Jim DeMartini, Terry Withrow, Vito Chiesa and Tom Berryhill — were clever to find a way to defy the state without exposing themselves to penalties.
They learned from other counties — specifically, Yuba, Sutter and Modoc — that open rebellion doesn’t work so well. Those counties were notified that they may lose critical state funding for blatantly disobeying the governor’s shutdown order.
Stanislaus supervisors acknowledged receiving heavy pressure from local businesses to push for reopening. It’s a safe bet that they got relatively little feedback from the comparative silent majority who are more worried about their families’ health. That’s how it always is; people demanding change always are more vocal. But that doesn’t make them right.
Tuesday’s vote is something akin to civil disobedience: It looks good to Stanislaus supervisors’ political base, but the decision in reality shifts risk and responsibility from county leaders to business people and their customers.
