The owner of a Monrovia restaurant was getting ready for work Tuesday morning, June 16, when she heard the news of Los Angeles County health officials urging patrons to file complaints via a hotline if they spot restaurants not following the county’s anti-coronavirus safety guidelines.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness gracious,” Susan West said. “This is making everybody the police.’ But the good thing is we’re following the rules.”

West is one of many restaurant owners grappling to navigate a rigorous list of rules as they reopen their dining rooms after weeks of closure amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Health officials said Monday they discovered that about half of nearly 2,000 restaurants they visited over the weekend were not following safety rules.

The announcement came about two weeks after county officials allowed restaurants to open for dine-in customers — after months of takeout and delivery only — despite the rising number coronavirus cases. Los Angeles County added 1,337 COVID-19 cases and 33 related deaths on Tuesday.

“There should be no places where tables are right next to each other,” L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said Monday.

West runs a MOOYAH Burgers, Fries & Shakes site as a franchisee. Over the past few weeks, she has spent hours trying to get her restaurant in compliance with the county’s guidelines and regulations.

Recently, West removed some chairs and moved tables to keep them at least six feet apart. Her staff can seat about 16 customers inside and six outside the restaurant.

“We’re not super busy and it has not been a problem yet,” West said.

Under the county’s rules, her restaurant can allow only 60% percent of its full capacity.

“The hardest thing is that we have to sanitize everything with a special sanitizer,” she said, adding that she needs to keep an extra full-time worker just to clean surfaces.

West also had to replace ketchup and mustard bottles with single-use packets and remove salt and paper shakers from the tables.

The social distancing rules imposed by the county are meant to stem the spread of the virus while keeping workers and patrons safe, but the rules also contribute to additional operational costs.

West said her labor-related costs have inched up and spending on paper has increased “quite a bit” in the last few weeks, she said.

Jacqueline Canter, co-owner and one of Canter’s restaurant’s managers, said she stayed until midnight with her brother Marc in early June, walking with a tape measure to make sure the tables were set eight to ten feet apart. Before the pandemic erupted, her familiar deli/restaurant on Fairfax Avenue could seat about 470 customers. Now, she can welcome no more than 284 guests.

“You can’t just reopen your doors,” she said, “you need to obey some guidelines.”

She also needed to:

• Order hundreds of masks for employees;
• Purchase thermometers to measure the temperature of each guest and employees; and
• Post signs urging patrons to wear facemasks.

“The larger the restaurant is the easier it is to follow the rules,” she said, adding that for smaller restaurants it would be hard to operate at 60% capacity because they would be allowed to seat only a few people.

While her restaurant has endured some financial losses, she said, her business has some advantages. Her family owns the building where the restaurant is located, so she hasn’t had to worry about paying the rent in a neighborhood where that cost has skyrocketed over the past few years.

In Redondo Beach’s Riviera Village, where a collection of restaurants stretches along the seashore, outdoor dining on the street could start as early as this weekend if the city grants the necessary permit under a plan approved by the City Council last week.

Business district president Jeff Ginsburg said he was hopeful to have the barricades up by Friday, June 19, and tables possibly out by this weekend.

Catalina Avenue between Via Del Norte and Vista Del Mar will be closed to traffic, with the exception of a fire lane, to allow for restaurants and retail shops access to expand their footprints. Multiple Southern California communities have launched or are considering similar plans.

While the street closure in Redondo will not cover every establishment in the business district, every restaurant can use it, Ginsburg said.

Some of the details still need to be worked out, however, for restaurants that are not located immediately adjacent to the zone.

“If the whole area fills up with tables, then we might expand it,” Ginsburg said. “We want to start out and see how it works. I know we will be learning some lessons from it but the intention is that all restaurants will have their full occupancy by utilizing the (expanded) area.”

In the San Fernando Valley, Lorena Sanchez, an owner of the Bob’s Big Boy diner, said she had spent roughly $2,000 to purchase masks, sanitizers and order one-use paper menus.

Following the county’s guidelines were “confusing” at first, she said, but they started making more sense as she spent more time studying them.

Still, her business has not been able to bounce back. Since the pandemic started, her retro eatery in Northridge has been making about $60,000 a month, a third of what it was earning before the coronavirus outbreak. She is still waiting to hire all of her staff back. So far, only 18 out of 30 employees have returned, she said.

Sanchez added, however, that keeping distance between patrons has not been a challenge.

“Not a lot of people are coming in,” she said. “Maybe they are still afraid.”

Staff Reporter David Rosenfeld contributed to this story.