YUBA CITY, Calif. — Kristi Goldby and her mother Marsha Miller put out a sign in front of their business welcoming their customers back next week.
The two of them own Headlines Salon and Spa, which has been closed for weeks as state and local officials order businesses to shutdown to help mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.
"It's time to open it back up, because if we don't we're going to lose everything," Miller said.
Unlike many other small businesses beginning to open up in efforts to make enough money to stay open after the pandemic, Goldby and Miller aren't defying public health orders to open.
This week, in addition to a new order requiring everyone to wear a face covering, both Sutter and Yuba counties have decided to relax their stay-at-home orders, allowing certain businesses to reopen on Monday.
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Those businesses include hair salons, like Miller and Goldby's.
The two have been in business for 35 years in Yuba City until the stay-at-home order put everything on hold.
"We went from one day making lots of money, to the next day making absolutely nothing," Goldby said. "So it was scary."
Sutter and Yuba's bi-county revised public health allows places considered to be the lowest risk of exposure to reopen — like shopping malls, dine-in restaurants, gyms, libraries and parks.
But churches, schools and movie theaters must stay closed.
"[The counties] felt it was important to the health of community for a local order like this, an ability to get as many people back to work as possible in a safe manner," said Chuck Smith, a spokesman for Sutter County.
Even though they're opening a new testing site funded by the state at the Sutter County Veteran's Hall on Monday, Smith said the counties' case rate has plateaued, and they have a minimal number of hospitalizations.
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"The threat of COVID-19 is not over in Yuba and Sutter counties, and [Public Health Officer Dr. Phuong Luu] is very well aware of that," Smith said. "Our community has done a great job flattening the curve just like the rest of the state of California."
All businesses that do reopen must develop their own list of safety protocols to protect their customers and employees.
For Goldby and Miller's salon, that means limiting the number of people that can be in the salon in the same time and allowing clients to only come in for 30 minutes at a time.
"I think the people that have the best pulse of what's going on in our community are the people that lifted these order," Goldby said. "And I don't think that they would jeopardize our safety in any way shape or form. So we're going to trust that we're all doing the same thing and be good team players."
Follow the conversation on Facebook with Lena Howland.
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