SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – New guidelines for San Diego County breweries will give brewers a chance to reopen early, without having to operate under the guidance of a restaurant.
California quietly changed its orientation to breweries and distilleries on Thursday, eliminating the requirement that breweries and distilleries can only reopen outdoors as a restaurant and would need to serve meals with drinks. The quickest that breweries and distilleries could reopen outdoors would be the orange layer of the California reopening system.
Meanwhile, wineries were allowed to operate outdoors with modifications, not tied to serving food and restaurant guidance.
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Starting on Saturday, March 13, breweries, distilleries and wineries will operate under the same guidance as the state’s Blueprint for Safe Recovery and may reopen outdoors with modifications to the purple layer. The guidance includes:
- Use a reservation system,
- Allow customers to stay a maximum of 90 minutes,
- On-site consumption should end at 8 pm,
- Sites must operate outdoors for counties in the purple and red layers, and
- Locations can open with limited internal capacity in counties in the orange layer.
The chairman of the county supervisor, Nathan Fletcher, said that the breweries that operate as a restaurant may also continue to do so.
In a statement, Fletcher said he and the San Diego County Brewers Guild have been working for weeks to move breweries and distilleries under the same rules as wineries.
“I have been working with the San Diego Brewers Guild and the Governor’s Office for several weeks to establish a safe reopening plan and I am happy that breweries will now be able to open under the same guidelines as wineries,” said Fletcher. “This is good for brewers, good for our economic recovery and good for San Diego County.”
The new guidance comes a day after Governor Gavin Newsom said he expects the state to reach its first vaccine equality goal on Friday, which would allow counties in the purple layer to operate under the red layer with a case rate of 10 per 100,000 people instead of seven.
Local authorities expect San Diego County to be at the red level this season, next week, thanks to the level change. Once in the red layer, restrictions on external operations and some internal operations would be eased, including:
- Retail with 50% capacity
- Cinemas, museums, zoos and aquariums with 25% internal capacity (or 100 people in cinemas)
- Gyms and fitness centers with 10% capacity indoors
- Restaurants with a capacity of 25% or 100 people (whichever is smaller) indoors
- Shopping centers with 50% of internal capacity, but closing the common areas and reducing the capacity of the food court
California’s recent level changes also benefit theme parks and stadiums. Petco Park expects to receive fans for the opening day on April 1, after the state issued guidelines allowing the two industries to start reopening in the purple and red layers as well:
- Theme and amusement parks: 15% of capacity as soon as the county reaches the red level. Presence limited to California residents. Groups must have a maximum of 10 people or three families, no mixing is allowed. Internal capacity of 15% with time restrictions and weekly worker test. Tickets can also be purchased online.
- Stadiums and live events: capacity will be limited to 100 people or less in the purple layer and 20% in the red layer counties as of April 1, this includes suites with 25% occupancy per suite and suites with a maximum of three residences . Concessions on the seat.
The state’s loosened reopening measures come as California registers nearly 11 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine administered. San Diego County has administered more than 1,160,000 doses of vaccine as of Thursday. In the municipality, 678,267 residents (25.2% of the municipality) received one dose, while 385,938 (14.4% of the municipality) received two doses.