The City of Los Angeles will follow in the footsteps of the county to allow retail shops such as clothing stores, music stores, and florists to open for curbside pickup, starting on Friday, Mayor Eric Garcetti said.
Garcetti also announced that while that the ever-popular Runyon Canyon will stay closed, some other city trails, parks, and golf courses will open starting Saturday, he said during his daily briefing on Wednesday, May 6.
Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this week loosened restrictions statewide for some lower-risk retail shops.
Los Angeles County public health officials followed suit with plans to institute similar guidance for retail shops to open with curbside service. They said they were set to release specific protocols on Thursday.
Garcetti, who hopes to revise his stay-at-home order on Thursday, urged a cautious approach to this week’s reopening milestone, saying that businesses will need to decide if they can open safely, “so while you can open as early as Friday, you don’t have to.”
“Today was an exciting day in many ways,” he said. “It’s a nervous one, but one that we have been waiting for, for a long time.”
Garcetti said that he and other public officials will be taking a gradual approach, with the first “baby steps” taking place this week.
Among the examples of retail shops he said would qualify under the loosened order: stores selling toys, books, clothing, sporting goods, music, and flowers.
Garcetti said that even during the existing safer at home orders, Angelenos were taking precautions as they went to farmers’ markets and visited businesses deemed essential so that “we could hang on to some of those things that were important to us and were essential to our lives.”
