Written by Will Seykora
Tuesday afternoon Supervisor Nathan Fletcher announced that San Diego would be moving to California’s Yellow Tier, the least restrictive tier in California’s “Blueprint for a Safer Economy.” This comes just weeks after Fletcher stated that he wasn’t “Overly optimistic that will happen before June 15th…” when asked if San Diego would be moving to the Yellow Tier in May.
Now, a month later he announces that San Diego will be moving into the Yellow Tier on June 9th. That’s just six days before the tier restrictions would be lifted, but what does moving to Yellow Tier actually do for San Diegans? Well theoretically it would allow outdoor music venues to increase to 67% capacity, restaurants and gyms to 50% capacity (indoor and outdoor), and allow bars to open to 25%.
However, Nathan Fletcher is a day late and a dollar short with this announcement as over six hundred San Diego restaurants have closed their doors for good, forcing thousands into an unemployment system that is hurting more Californians than helping.
Although San Diegans can take a sigh of relief as their lives are finally getting back to normal, the cost of these lockdowns and restrictions was far more than monetary. Decades or even generations of work that went into building some of San Diego’s most recognizable businesses was stomped out by the dictator-like lockdowns imposed on California, with Nathan Fletcher being the biggest supporter of them in San Diego.
