As students make their way back to Eugene for fall term of the 2020-21 school year, the Eugene community is asking many questions about safety and security. From campus living to local health, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a massive change in everyone’s day-to-day lives around the country.
Local businesses have been one of the biggest groups to feel this change. In a college town that thrives on the student population, local businesses have typically counted down the days of summer until college students return to the area. Now, local business owners say that sentiment has somewhat changed.
“There are mixed feelings,” Tim Meyers, a manager at Track Town Pizza, said. “We have 50 employees, so there are many different feelings about being open. I like having people in. We were completely shut down so it’s nice to be open again. But when people don’t follow social distancing guidelines, it does get stressful.”
Track Town Pizza is not the only establishment that feels this way. Steve Hirons, vice president of Hirons, also expressed mixed feelings about the potential uptick in customers thanks to the students’ return to the area.
“We are pleasantly surprised to see students and families of students in our stores in the last couple of weeks,” Hirons said. “I wasn’t sure we were gonna have any students coming back in the store.”
Hirons said that, despite being surprised with the customers, he still felt concerned about the risk of exposure for his employees and shoppers. Much of his recent concerns had been around the current “high alert” level for COVID-19 raised by Lane County Public Health.
Despite concerns, both Meyers and Hirons said that they have not experienced any issues with students violating COVID-19 protocol in the past couple of weeks.
Lane County is now in Phase 2 of reopening. According to Oregon’s Phase 2 guidelines for restaurants and bars, establishments are able to continue operations as long as they are successfully able to implement social distancing measures into their operations. These measures include maximum occupancy rules, table distancing guidelines and a 10-person party size cap.
Statewide guidance for retail operations during all phases of reopening requires retail stores to limit the number of customers allowed in the establishment at one time in order to maintain a minimum of six feet between customers and staff.
The management of the store decides the number of people allowed in the establishment at one time. Other practices outlined in the guidelines include the sanitization of all high-traffic surfaces and clear signage posted throughout the store to inform customers of the rules and regulations.
“We’re going to keep going with whatever the state recommends,” Meyers said. “We are just going to continue to monitor the amount of people that come in.”
The Emerald asked other high-traffic establishments around campus to comment for this story, but was declined an interview about their COVID-19 regulations and potential violations.
