California Announces Roll Back Of Certain Restrictions & Increased Enforcement Measures As COVID-19 Numbers Continue To Surge

July 1, 2020

At his news conference today, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced increased enforcement measures and the toggling back of certain precautionary restrictions due to surging COVID-19 statistics, including the closure of all state beach parking lots in Southern California for 4th of July weekend and the preclusion of many indoor business operations in certain counties.

Citing increased COVID-19 infections across the state and the nation, Gov. Newsom today laid out the roll back of certain precautionary measures. California is instructing certain sectors in all 19 counties that have been on the County Monitoring List for 3 consecutive days to close indoor operations due to risk of spread, including restaurants, wineries, tasting rooms, zoos, family entertainment centers, museums, theaters and card rooms. Tribal casinos are urged to modify operations as well. The 19 counties are Los Angeles, Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, San Joaquin, Tulare, Contra Costa, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Stanislaus, Ventura, Solano, Merced, Glenn and Orange. San Diego is not included in counties that must impose new restrictions.

This guidance will remain in place for at least three weeks. This "dimmer switch", as the governor calls it, is based on conditions in particular counties. All bars in the 19 counties are also to close. All parking facilities at state beaches in Southern California and the Bay Area will be closed for the upcoming weekend. State beaches in San Diego County include Carlsbad State Beach, South Carlsbad, San Elijo, Cardiff, Leucadia, Moonlight, Silver Strand, and Torrey Pines. Other state parks remain open, with measures in place to reduce visitation and limit overcrowding.

In counties that close local beaches, the State will follow suit and close state beaches. It was announced earlier this week that beaches will be closed this weekend in Los Angeles and Ventura counties. San Diego County officials have stated they will not be closing beaches, rather than leaving it up to individual jurisdictions to decide based on preparedness.

California will also begin more strongly enforcing public health orders with multi-agency "Strike Teams" taretting non-compliant businesses and building partnerships with local county public health departments. Strike teams will include ABC, CalOSHA, Department of business Oversight, Department of Consumer Affairs, and the California Highway Patrol.

It is expected that San Diego County will further address the Governor's announcement at the Board of Supervisors press conference this afternoon at 2:30pm. There have been 232,657 positive COVID-19 cases in California, which is up a record 4.4% today. There have been 6,090 total deaths, which is at a 1.8% increase today.

This is a developing story and we will update this post as we learn more.