Businesses open with coronavirus safety precautions enforced

New rules, no problem.

At least, that’s the case for a Henderson cafe preparing to host customers for the first time in nearly two months.

Magnolia Magat already was set on implementing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-driven changes to her Truffles N’ Bacon Cafe, 8872 S. Eastern Ave., before the governor told her what she must to do open her business on Saturday.

If she doesn’t comply with mandated social distancing, face coverings for her employees and limiting occupancy, she is at risk of a verbal warning, citation and business license suspension.

But that likely won’t concern Magat, whose measures for her own cafe will be more stringent than those required by Gov. Steve Sisolak for certain small businesses previously deemed nonessential — among them hair and nail salons, as well as dine-in restaurants — to again open their doors.

She will also require her customers to wear coverings (they can pull them down while they eat) and wait in the car to be seated. She is ditching a physical menu, considering a temporary switch to disposable silverware and limiting capacity to 40 percent once she expands her dining experience from the patio on Saturday to indoors on May 15.

Magat sees it as her responsibility to play by the rules, and if she loses out on business from upset customers, so be it.

“We’re in Vegas, and I don’t want to gamble with somebody else’s life,” she said.

Compliance check, please

Sisolak’s directive leaves enforcement of Phase One rules to the local jurisdictions and state licensing boards.

Clark County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick, after a meeting in which the commission voted unanimously not to add any additional restrictions to the governor’s plan, indicated that the county, Southern Nevada Health District, Metropolitan Police Department and licensing boards will continue to conduct daily business inspections.

Asked if there were any specific enforcement operations planned for the reopenings this weekend, Kirkpatrick said she had “a lot of confidence people are not going to mess this up.”

Requests seeking clarification from the health district and Metro on their roles in enforcement weren’t returned.

North Las Vegas City Manager Ryann Juden said the city is reviewing industry-specific reopening guidelines released Friday afternoon by the governor’s office to figure out how to enforce them.

But in general, enforcement will be treated much like it has over the past several weeks through the code enforcement department. If residents contact the city, North Las Vegas employees will do site visits, he said.

Juden said fines are on the table for businesses that do not comply.

Shortly after the governor announced reopening guidelines Thursday, the city began reaching out to businesses to notify them of the updates, spokesman Patrick Walker said.

Henderson’s business operations manager, Michael Cathcart, said the city is trying to be proactive with reopening.

He said the only reason police would get involved is if there is a repeatedly noncompliant business. But before things got to that point, businesses would receive a verbal warning, and could face a fine, Cathcart said.

Gary Landry, executive director of the Nevada Board of Cosmetology, said the board has five inspectors available in Las Vegas to visit the couple of thousand hair and nail salons in Las Vegas.

“We’re going to hit as many as we have to, especially those who have had violations in the past to make sure they are not doing anything to endanger the public,” he said, adding roughly 10 to 15 percent of salons have had previous compliance issues.

The board already has the authority to fine businesses and suspend licenses, he said, and will use existing regulations that mandate businesses provide a safe and sanitary environment to ensure salons and barbershops are operating in accordance with state and local reopening guidelines.

Good and bad actors

While Jared Fisher plans to abide by Phase One reopening requirements for his bike business, Las Vegas Cyclery, 10575 Discovery Drive, he isn’t worried about enforcement. He’s not sure many will be.

“We can’t even balance our budget in the state of Nevada, how are we going to send out enforcement to all these businesses?” Fisher posited.

He expects business owners will obey and keep themselves in check. And for the “bad actors” who won’t, he said, they probably will get a knock at their door from the government.

“You’re going to be policed by your patrons,” Fisher said.

The state director of a national organization that represents small businesses isn’t too concerned about whether businesses will play ball.

By and large, business owners agree that their strongest priorities are to protect their employees and customers, Randi Thompson said.

Small businesses by their nature tend to produce social distancing as a function of smaller numbers of people inside at once, she said. While some businesses were left scrambling to prepare their store to open, others have been working for this moment for several weeks.

The Thursday order prompted Thompson, a small-business owner herself, to start looking for the maximum capacity placard in her building.

Most of her fellow owners want to do the right thing, she said. “We need to be still taking it seriously,” Thompson said. This epidemic is not over.”

If those concerns aren’t enough to spur compliance, the threat of a lawsuit might do the trick. It’s a real possibility if a customer contracts COVID-19 after visiting a store with too many customers or maskless employees, she said.

It has taken about two years for the original Lotus of Siam location at 953 E. Sahara Ave. to re-open after being damaged in a flood and roof cave-in, but co-owner Penny Chutima said she’s going to wait a little longer, just to make sure everything is right.

“Especially with the protocols and the new updates,” said Chutima, who admitted to being “more worried than excited” about the opening, which she said she thinks will come May 20-25.

She’s installing a thermal camera — like the ones to be used at Wynn Las Vegas and The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, she said — that can check the temperatures of 150 people per minute. While her bussers will wear fabric masks, she’s ordering clear plastic face shields for the servers, so they can talk to the customers.

She is updating the reservation system, and if she can have a wait list, the people on it will be notified in their homes or hotel rooms when their table is ready.

Contact Mike Shoro at mshoro@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5290. Follow @mike_shoro on Twitter. Review-Journal staff writers Blake Apgar, Rory Appleton and Heidi Knapp Rinella contributed to this report.