Making another move to ease restrictions as virus infections dip and vaccines spread, California will permit large-group outdoor activities to resume at limited capacity next month, allowing baseball parks to welcome fans for the start of the season and performance venues to resume operations.
Starting April 1, outdoor sports stadiums, music and art locales and amusement parks across the state may host guests, some for the first time in a year, according to California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly.
“With case rates and hospitalizations significantly lower, the arrival of three highly effective vaccines and targeted efforts aimed at vaccinating the most vulnerable communities, California can begin gradually and safely bringing back more activities, especially those that occur outdoors and where consistent masking is possible,” Ghaly said.
Restrictions will vary according to a county’s place in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s color-coded reopening system. For sports and performance venues in the “widespread” or purple tier, capacity will be limited to 100 people or fewer and no concession sales. In the next-lowest “substantial” or red tier, capacity will be limited to 20 percent, with limited concessions, followed by 33 percent in the orange tier and 67 percent in the yellow tier.
Across all tiers, attendance will be limited to in-state visitors. Amusement parks may only reopen in the red tier, starting at 15% capacity.
In the Bay Area, Santa Clara, San Francisco and San Mateo counties are in the red tier, with Alameda County and Contra Costa County expected to join as soon as next week. The state has promised to revamp the threshold for the orange tier in coming weeks, so it is possible some of these counties will advance to that tier by April 1.
All in all, Bay Area residents are returning to a semblance of normal life after months of COVID-19-induced lockdown. In recent weeks, indoor dining and gyms have reopened at reduced capacity, and some schools have resumed in-person classes. Next week, high school sports returns to the field.
The Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants were quick to praise the new protocols late Friday. If both Alameda and San Francisco counties are in the red tier at the start of April, the Giants will be permitted to host around 8,200 fans at Oracle Park while the A’s can have as many as 11,020 fans at the Coliseum.
“We want to share this experience with the fans and in some ways, we feel like the game is not fully the game without our fans around,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said. “It feels like we’re in a partnership with them, and something is missing when they’re not in the stands.”
Both the Giants and the A’s have hosted fans at their spring training ballparks in Arizona and plan to continue many protocols they adopted there, such as selling tickets for socially distanced pods and requiring masks, the organizations said.
The San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer may also be able to have fans in their stands after their season opens next month, pending approval of the state plan by the Santa Clara County Health Department, which has often chosen to trail behind the state’s reopening schemes.
Bay Area music venue organizers, meanwhile, said they were still digesting the new rules.
“We are optimistic but are still figuring out the details,” says Wente Vineyards spokeswoman Kela Driggs. “I think the news is a factor and adds to our optimism.”
Some promoters, however, said that it would be difficult to do business by operating venues at reduced capacities. Dennis Denny of AEG, which promotes shows at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga and other local venues, plans for now to reopen only for full-capacity shows.
“Of course it’s an ever-changing thing,” he added.
The decision comes on the heels of a new scheme that links vaccine distribution to reopening, loosening restrictions for counties to advance within tiers after 2 million vaccine doses have been delivered to vulnerable ZIP codes. As of Friday, the state has administered about 9.6 million vaccines, with 3 million people fully vaccinated.
University of California, San Francisco, epidemiologist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong said that he was initially shocked to see the announcement Friday. But the in-state visitor requirement — along with the staggered capacity through tiers — reassured him that California has not “turned off a switch” like Texas, which recently did away with its mask mandate.
“These things going together, in theory, make me feel a little bit better,” Chin-Hong said. “It’s okay because it’s gradual, and more folks will have been vaccinated.”
