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The manager of Los Amigos Strength and Fitness Center in Signal Hill plans to host a 6 a.m. fitness class on Monday morning, just a few hours after being allowed to welcome customers indoors for the first time in nearly a year.
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“We’re just tired; it’s been a really long year,” said Sandy Bond, manager of the gym, which at one point was down to just 16 paying members. “We’ve seen a lot of our friends go under and not open back up. We’re trying to make it through. We lost over 60% to 70% of our business.”
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The city will allow restaurants to serve diners outdoors several days ahead of Los Angeles County, which announced earlier in the day that it would issue a new health order for dine-in service on Friday. Long Beach, however, will be more strict in requiring diners to sit 8 feet apart instead of 6 feet.
Other services, including hair and nail salons, can open Monday in Los Angeles County, and on Tuesday in Long Beach, with 25% capacity.
Ciaran Gough, president of the Long Beach Restaurant Association, said it’s a good thing the city is allowing restaurants to open but said it was highly unlikely any would be able to reopen on less than a day’s notice.
The restaurant business can be a financial gamble even in the best of times, but COVID has made it nearly impossible for them to survive for any length of time. Many have already gone under for good, and the survivors are struggling to make enough money to pay whatever few workers they can afford to keep employed. Both indoor and outdoor dining have been banned at least through Dec. 28 by the state’s recent health order, leaving restaurants to struggle along with take-out service through what should be their busiest time of the year.
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To assist restaurants and their workers, Alex Cherin, executive director of the Long Beach Restaurant Association, launched a GoFundMe fundraiser on Thursday to collect money by Dec. 31 to distribute to servers, kitchen staff and other restaurant employees who have been impacted or lost their jobs as a result of the COVID crises.