Santa Cruz businesses attempt to reopen in the yellow tier
Starting Wednesday, Santa Cruz County was officially in the yellow tier.
It means businesses can expand capacity and some that weren't allowed to open can now do so, but some local businesses need more time before they can reopen their doors.
You wouldn't have seen Baymonte Christian School students like this during the last 14 months.
More than 270 kindergarten-eighth graders outdoor-in person-with guest speaker, Mark Palm, President of Samaritan Aviation.
"For our school, we've been able to put different cohorts together for the first time today," said Steve Patterson, Baymonte Christian School principal.
It's not necessarily going to be lights, camera, action, immediately. Some venues still have questions on what they can and can't do in the yellow tier.
It's complicated for the Rio Theater.
Capacity is 724 people but for last week’s movie, only 100 people were allowed in.
For live entertainment there seem to be several protocols that must be followed before it can resume.
"We'll do films now, very limited capacity just to keep everything going, the adventure films we do but live have nothing on the books until September," said Laurence Bedford, Rio Theater Owner.
Santa Cruz Shakespeare tickets go on sale June 1.
Capacity is 425 but only 200 patrons will be allowed to attend.
"The yellow tier will give us an opportunity to maybe expand for our original plans but we're still looking at keeping it very safe and distant as we have planned from the beginning," said Larry Mabrey, managing director.
The Del Mar theater won't be right back as the marque states, but it will reopen sometime later this year. The city of Santa Cruz, which owns the building is planning on amending its lease with Landmark Theaters
There's a lot of uncertainty about audience sizes. How people are going to return to theaters. What sort of films are even available to show with production down during the pandemic," said David McCormic, Santa Cruz Asset & Development manager.
Santa Cruz venues are telling their patrons if they have any questions that they visit their website.