April 8, 2025 • 19 mins
COVID Lockdowns: A 5-Year Retrospective on Long Beach’s Turning Point
In this reflective episode of All in Long Beach, host Stuart Takahara revisits the COVID lockdowns that reshaped our community. Five years later, we explore what went right—and what didn’t—with local responses during those unprecedented days. Hear how businesses, from wine bars to small convenience stores, pivoted amid panic buying, staffing challenges, and sweeping government mandates. Was the prolonged lockdown necessary, or could a more targeted approach have saved our local economy?
Join us as we:
• Analyze the impact of the lockdowns on daily life and local commerce.
• Share personal anecdotes and lessons learned from the early days of the pandemic.
• Discuss whether our community’s reaction was an overcorrection or a lifesaving measure.
We’d love to hear from you! Share your thoughts and join the discussion in our exclusive Patreon community.
Listen now and subscribe for more insightful stories from Long Beach.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:01):
All in Long Beach, we're breaking it down.
News and events from all around town.
Business, politics, lifestyle too.
Food and fun, we bring it to you.
Stuart - All In Long Beach (00:16):
And welcome to the All in Long Beach podcast.
Hello, friends and neighbors.
This is Stuart Takahara, your hostof the All in Long Beach podcast.
And today, I wanted to take aretrospect for those of us that were
here in Long Beach five years ago.
Five years ago today was a daythat the entire world changed.
Something that I never thoughtwould happen, happened.
(00:39):
And that was the COVID lockdowns wherethey're saying, we're closing everything.
For I think it was like 10 days orsomething like that or 12 days to quote
flatten the curve and as we all knowThat, that fateful day in March turned
into closures all the way until Juneand then again around the holidays.
And so now we look back five yearslater and hopefully enough time has
(01:03):
gone by where we can do a littleretrospect to say, did this work?
Did we do the right things?
Did we do the wrong things?
What could we have done differently?
What could we have done better?
Not to say that we're expectinganother global pandemic in our
lifetime, but People will look backon this and say, Did we overreact?
(01:24):
Did we underreact?
Did we do things right?
Did we do things wrong?
You know, so, I hope enough timehas gone by where we can now, as a
society, as a city, actually takea moment and really just kind of
retrospectively and unbiasedly lookat, did we do everything that we can?
(01:45):
Could have.
Did we do everything that we should have?
Did we do things that didn'treally make a difference?
So that's kind of what I wantto talk about today, and I want
you to leave your comments.
If you're a Patreon member, be sure toleave your comments in the show notes,
and if you're watching us on YouTube,be, you know, comment on, on that.
Because I really want to kind of getyour, your feel for what you think
(02:05):
we did right and what we did wrong.
Because I was back here, so backfive years ago during the COVID
lockdowns, um, I had the wine bar,and I also had a, owned a convenience
store here in downtown Long Beach.
And Talk about changing and pivoting.
So the bar was shut down.
I mean, that was it.
There was no restaurants,no bars, no outdoor dinings.
(02:25):
Even though the majority of myplace was out on a patio outside,
it was still no, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
But the store, the convenience store,on the other hand, it was small.
It was under 700 square feet, a littleconvenience store, and man, did we pivot.
People, I remember, were scaredto go to the grocery store.
And back then, we didn't really have alot of the door dashes and a lot of the
(02:46):
grocery deliveries that we have now.
That was all, that all, thatwhole industry kind of spun from
the COVID lockdowns, all thishome delivery service and stuff.
So we didn't have that back then.
And I just remember I said, allright, I've already got a lot of
this established, um, relationshipwith food vendors and suppliers.
We really need to start thinking outof the box on how we can do this.
(03:08):
So I remember we pivoted at the store.
We started carrying fresh produce.
We started packaging everythingin individual bags so you didn't
have to touch the produce.
I remember going to our wholesalerwhere I got a lot of stuff.
And man, there were likefights over toilet paper.
And paper towels andanything that was there.
People were just buying anything.
(03:29):
I remember I would go to the,I would go to the wholesaler.
And I would just get whatever I could get.
Because that's what everyone was doing.
It was a ton of panic buying.
I'd bring it to the store.
I'd drop it off.
And then I'd head back.
And I'd turn back around again.
And I'd do the same thing.
And by the time I got back tothe store again, a couple hours
later, a lot of the stuff was gone.
It was the most.
amazing experience.
(03:52):
I think that you talk about sci fi.
I mean, that was what was happening herewhen we were going through this thing.
And then all the lockdownstarted and everyone was
like, yay, healthcare workers.
And I remember like at five o'clockor something like that, people
would play music and ring bells orsomething or something like that.
I don't remember exactly what itwas, all this kind of this rallying
behind supporting each other andbeing part of this neighborhood
(04:14):
and being part of the city.
And then some crazy stuff happened.
Okay, as we learned more atafter the lockdowns, I supported
the lockdowns at the beginning.
It was like, we don't knowwhat we're dealing with.
We don't know what this is.
So I was like, yes, we should.
You know, take a time out.
Let's all take a pause on society.
Let's take a pause, just a moment, andlet's just figure out what this is, but
(04:37):
in the coming days and in the comingweeks, we started to learn and we started
learning more that this coronavirus, thiscoronavirus, this thing that we didn't
know a lot about was really affecting asmall targeted people, people with pre
existing conditions, older, the elderly,um, and, and things along those lines.
We knew that.
We knew that was what was happening andwhat we should have done at that point
(05:02):
is, in my opinion, we should have focusedmore on protecting this group of people
instead of just a blanket kind of thing.
There were a lot of people that wereafraid to go out that probably could
have helped in certain situations andthey didn't because they were scared
because that was what we were told to be.
We were told to be scared andwe were told to stay home.
But there were probably people that couldhave helped more people in this situation.
(05:26):
So if we knew this was something thatwas only affecting the elderly or
people with pre existing conditions, ifyou were relatively healthy, you'd be
okay as long as you took precautions.
Those people could have donemore home delivery services.
They could have done more, um, aid.
They wouldn't have been as afraidto go out and help their elderly
neighbors if they needed help.
You know, so we kind of look at that.
(05:47):
And then the otherstrangest thing happened.
Where they said, you know,grocery stores, right?
They started limiting the number ofpeople, started making aisles one way.
And then this is what really got me.
They're saying spread out, right?
Social distance, six feet apart, all this.
But why is it that grocery stores,like, you know how they have
two different entrances, oneon one side, one on the other?
(06:08):
They closed one entrance.
And they took all the people andthey forced them into one entrance.
When we're supposed to be spreading out,I don't know why they closed one entrance.
They should have made one entrancegoing in and one entrance going out.
You know, one door in, one door out.
It spreads people.
It creates that flow, but insteadthey closed that and that, that was
a, that was a bad idea because itforced everybody back together again.
(06:30):
In Long Beach here, our mayor atthe time, Robert Garcia, closed
beaches, closed public sidewalks,closed the parks, closed everything
that was supposed to be outside.
Where it was already determined thatwas the best place to be is outside.
So he closed the bike paths and allthis, but people are creatures of Habit.
They're still gonna get their workouts in.
They're still gonna go to the gyms.
They're just gonna adapt.
(06:52):
And I remember there was a lot ofpeople one day out on the sidewalks
walking their dogs, riding theirbikes, getting their exercise.
I remember over the, you know, on thebike paths, they have all the playground
equipment, or not the playground,the gym equipment, stuff like that.
There's yellow caution tape allover this, and it's all torn off.
Well, people were using this.
I'm just like, well,that's not going to work.
(07:12):
You got to put yellowcaution tape around this.
People are just going to tear it off.
People are going to do whatthey're going to do, right?
So, the craziest thing to me, thecraziest thing, is that closing these
beaches and closing the bike pathsput everybody onto the sidewalk.
Where everyone's out, and so now becauseall this is closed, we consolidated more
(07:32):
people into a smaller amount of space.
You know, this is Long Beach.
Long Beach.
We got our name becausewe have a long beach.
Beachfront.
That was the whole thing.
That could have easily helped spreadout all this, but they didn't.
They put us all in two tiny spots onthe sidewalk where we were passing each
other, rubbing shoulders with each other.
You know, we consolidatedall these people.
(07:52):
And I remember at the time,our mayor saying something
like, Why is everybody outside?
You should be at home.
It's like, come on now.
April, May, we're in, we'rein March, April right now.
You know how the weather is.
It's gorgeous outside.
People want to be outside.
You're not gonna keep them inside.
So, We should have opened up everything.
I remember vividly too, there wasthis surfer, I think it was in Santa
(08:13):
Monica, and surfer, out in the water,all by himself, away from everybody.
And because the beaches were closed, theysent this police helicopter to go and
arrest him after he got out of the water.
I was like, are you kidding me?
I mean this is exactlywhat we should be doing.
Solo activities, out in themiddle of nowhere, by yourself.
(08:35):
That's what's supposedto be protection, right?
That's, that's supposed to be,be by yourself, get away, stay
outdoors, get plenty of fresh air.
So I think too extensive ofa lockdown kind of hurt us.
The other thing that I think really hurtus at the time was the mask mandate..
(08:57):
And let me rephrase that.
It's not necessarily the maskmandate, but I don't think people were
properly trained on how to use masks.
I remember there was this time whereeverybody became a seamstress, right?
Everybody started making masks.
They started putting logos on it.
Companies started bandwagoningand putting things on there.
But these cloth, these cloth masks are notMedically, they're, they're not like the
(09:20):
N95 masks that everybody was scammeringfor, the, the medical masks that you
use in surgeries or anything like that.
These are just pieces of cloth that asyou're breathing in and out, You know,
saliva and all your things as you'retalking gets caught up in it, and
because it's this heavy material, it justsits there, and you're breathing it in
constantly, and what even got me is whenyou didn't have to wear a mask, people
would take it off, right, and then theywould put it on the table, or they would
(09:44):
put it, um, on their dash, or they wouldput it on the front seat of their car,
or something like that, but they wouldput it face down, and if you don't know
how germs work, if there's something ona surface, That you put your mask down,
and it absorbs into the mask, and thenyou pick your mask up, and you put it
up on your face, now you're breathing inwhatever it is that was just picked up.
(10:07):
Like, I didn't use those things.
I used paper masks.
They got changed every four hours.
It got changed wheneverI didn't need it anymore.
So, you go out to a restaurant back whenwe were doing this, and you take your mask
off, you come back in, you get a new one.
You always are recycled.
I didn't get COVID at all.
And I was out and aboutdoing a lot of work.
Again, I was working in grocery stores.
I was out in the public everysingle day during the lockdowns.
(10:29):
Whether working on a constructionproject at the bar, or working at
the store, or running and picking upproduct, I was, I was out and about
every single day during the lockdown.
Didn't get COVID at all, because thismask mandate, I took it as a, as a,
okay, there's a mandate, I'll wear it.
Not a problem.
Um, I think that's the right thing to do.
(10:49):
I had that knowledge to say, I can'tjust wear it, I've got to change it out,
I've got to swap it out, I've got tochange these, you know, it just can't
be that same one, and it seemed to me,and you can think about this too and
see if it applies to you, it seemed tome that the people that were getting
COVID were the ones that were strictlyadhering to all of the Rules that were
(11:13):
set aside, especially like the mask.
They were wearing the same mask.
They weren't washing it.
You know, they say it was the samemask for days after days after days.
We should have had better education.
And saying, you gottachange this stuff up.
You need to, you know, youcan't keep using the same ones
over and over and over again.
That's just me.
I don't know.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a this.
But there's some common sensethat comes into play here.
(11:34):
You know, when we're trying to spreadout, we need to open up as much
public space as we can, not close it.
When we're putting things in ourface, on our mouths, it needs to
be sterile, it needs to be clean.
It can't just be something that you justpicked up and stuck on your face again.
That's not the bestthing, you can't do that.
That's, that's goingagainst the entire thing.
(11:54):
We didn't have enough Education about howto prepare your PPP for small business.
There was a ton of fraudin that, by the way.
That was just absolutelyridiculous as we look back at that.
And so many businesses, so manybusinesses, especially when I was down
here on Pine, closed and never recovered.
And that's, and that's sad.
(12:17):
When something that happened beyondyour control, Forced you to close,
and then the government really wasn'tthere to take care of your needs.
We're talking about businesseswith, um, unapologetic landlords.
We're talking about just cashflow, credit card debts, loans,
mortgage notes, all these things.
(12:38):
Everyone got screwed from the top down.
There's not many peoplethat I know that came out.
You know, ahead because of the COVIDlockdowns, there's not a community that
I know that got ahead or is better offtoday because of the COVID lockdowns.
Everyone is still trying to recover.
And man, I just think lookingback at this, I remember saying
(13:02):
when TV shows started coming back, right?
And they were wearing masks in these TVshows and they were trying to be timely.
I said, I remember saying, Hey, Atsome point in the future, people are
going to look back at this TV show asa rerun, and they're going to go like,
What were they thinking at that time?
What were they doing?
Why were they having this?
What were they doing?
What were they thinking?
They were rerun.
(13:23):
You know, what was going on?
I just don't get it.
I just don't get the I just don't getwhat people were thinking at the time.
So I think that we overly did it.
I think that there wasway too much happening.
That didn't make sense.
We should have focused on protectingthe vulnerable people of our population
(13:45):
and providing more resources to thosethat weren't necessarily needing it.
And, don't get me wrong, I'm not oneof those conspiracy theorists that say
COVID was all made up and I'm not one ofthose that are saying any of that, right?
I'm not saying that itdidn't exist, it did.
But, I just think that We put too muchfear into people that had nothing to fear.
(14:11):
We put people who were already afraidand gave them more reasons to be afraid.
We told people, watch out, watchout, watch out, when really we
should have been saying it's okay.
(14:32):
We'll get through this, it's notthat bad, as long as dot, dot, dot.
We should have never closed.
Once, okay, let me, I was going to say weshould have never closed the schools, we
should have never closed the businesses.
We should have.
But only during those initial 10or 15 days to flatten the curve.
Not for the months and monthsand months that we closed.
(14:53):
I mean, that was government oversightand government control at its finest.
That was absolutely insane.
Because you know why?
These politicians created so muchfear at the beginning, they couldn't
10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks later comeback and say, Oh, okay, we were wrong.
Oops, sorry.
You know, these guys willnever get elected again.
There's going to be these people thatwill be out there saying like, see, we
didn't, but the damage of two or threeweeks wouldn't have been anywhere near
(15:16):
as bad as the damage of the monthsand months and months that we had.
We closed down.
We closed down.
on March 19th.
We didn't open again untilthe first week of June.
That's April, May, six weeks, ortwo months there, eight weeks, two
weeks, ten, eleven weeks, I think itwas, that we were shut down before
we opened again in limited capacity.
And that was just bars andrestaurants, I'm sorry, that was
(15:39):
just restaurants and not even bars.
That was just certain restaurants,that was just certain criteria
that Kind of reopened up again.
I remember at the bar We were ableto open as a restaurant with food and
dining and all that and I didn't knowwhat to do My staff had all left.
I had part time staff overthere and during lockdowns.
They couldn't go to schoolThey couldn't make money.
So they all left Some a lot of them Ihad a lot of college kids that were going
(16:01):
to Long Beach State and they had to goBack home to Fresno to go live with their
parents and stuff like that because theycouldn't pay rent They couldn't get a job.
They couldn't make their,you know, pay their expenses.
So they, so when we were allowed to openagain, I had to hire a whole new staff.
And I said, I remember Italked to this one person.
I only hired one person, Tom.
I said, Tom, hey, listen, I know we canopen on whatever date it was in June.
(16:22):
I said, but just because we can opendoesn't mean people are going to show up.
So I don't know what to expect.
And you know what happened?
Man, that, that appetite forjust getting out was huge.
We had lines out the door.
There was tons of people around.
It was just two of usrunning around like crazy.
I was like, we got to start hiring.
Like, let's bring some people in.
I was amazed that with all the fear,after being locked down for those 11
(16:48):
weeks, that people were like, get me out.
I want to get back to life.
I want to get back to normal.
And if politicians were actuallywatching what people were saying and
their level of confidence, we shouldhave closed or stopped the lockdowns
and said, guys, we're all adults here.
You have the information.
You have the truth.
We know who this is affecting.
(17:08):
We know who it's not affecting.
We know we're working on a vaccine.
We know that we havethese mandates in here.
So use your best judgment.
You know, we, we brought in thatUSS Mercy hospital ship and we
brought that into the port of LA.
And it was never used.
I mean, I appreciate the, the thinkingof planning for the worst case scenario
and bringing it in here was a huge score.
(17:30):
But by the time that it got here,and by the time that we were going
through the opening processes of thebusiness and stuff, we didn't need it.
It was never, no one ever stayed on it.
So, fortunately, fortunately,we didn't need it.
But we should have opened up a lot faster,but it's these politicians holding on.
(17:51):
To that control, that was just insane.
So, that was my take on it.
I just, it was five years ago.
I just look back and go, man, I, I, Ican't believe It seemed like yesterday,
but it seemed like so long ago.
All at the same time.
So what do you think?
Leave me your commentsin the section below.
If you're a member on our Patreon,join us in our after show discussions.
That's where I want tohear what you have to say.
(18:13):
Uh, send me your soundbites andwe might be able to put them up
into a future episode as well.
That's it for this episodeof All in Long Beach.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you in the next episode.
Speaker (18:24):
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We will catch you in the next episode.
All in Long Beach, we're breaking it down.
News and events from all around town.
Business, politics, lifestyle too.
Food and fun, we bring it to you.
Stuart - All In Long Beach (00:16):
And welcome to the All in Long Beach podcast.
Hello, friends and neighbors.
This is Stuart Takahara, your hostof the All in Long Beach podcast.
And today, I wanted to take aretrospect for those of us that were
here in Long Beach five years ago.
Five years ago today was a daythat the entire world changed.
Something that I never thoughtwould happen, happened.
(00:39):
And that was the COVID lockdowns wherethey're saying, we're closing everything.
For I think it was like 10 days orsomething like that or 12 days to quote
flatten the curve and as we all knowThat, that fateful day in March turned
into closures all the way until Juneand then again around the holidays.
And so now we look back five yearslater and hopefully enough time has
(01:03):
gone by where we can do a littleretrospect to say, did this work?
Did we do the right things?
Did we do the wrong things?
What could we have done differently?
What could we have done better?
Not to say that we're expectinganother global pandemic in our
lifetime, but People will look backon this and say, Did we overreact?
(01:24):
Did we underreact?
Did we do things right?
Did we do things wrong?
You know, so, I hope enough timehas gone by where we can now, as a
society, as a city, actually takea moment and really just kind of
retrospectively and unbiasedly lookat, did we do everything that we can?
(01:45):
Could have.
Did we do everything that we should have?
Did we do things that didn'treally make a difference?
So that's kind of what I wantto talk about today, and I want
you to leave your comments.
If you're a Patreon member, be sure toleave your comments in the show notes,
and if you're watching us on YouTube,be, you know, comment on, on that.
Because I really want to kind of getyour, your feel for what you think
(02:05):
we did right and what we did wrong.
Because I was back here, so backfive years ago during the COVID
lockdowns, um, I had the wine bar,and I also had a, owned a convenience
store here in downtown Long Beach.
And Talk about changing and pivoting.
So the bar was shut down.
I mean, that was it.
There was no restaurants,no bars, no outdoor dinings.
(02:25):
Even though the majority of myplace was out on a patio outside,
it was still no, no, no, no, no.
Okay.
But the store, the convenience store,on the other hand, it was small.
It was under 700 square feet, a littleconvenience store, and man, did we pivot.
People, I remember, were scaredto go to the grocery store.
And back then, we didn't really have alot of the door dashes and a lot of the
(02:46):
grocery deliveries that we have now.
That was all, that all, thatwhole industry kind of spun from
the COVID lockdowns, all thishome delivery service and stuff.
So we didn't have that back then.
And I just remember I said, allright, I've already got a lot of
this established, um, relationshipwith food vendors and suppliers.
We really need to start thinking outof the box on how we can do this.
(03:08):
So I remember we pivoted at the store.
We started carrying fresh produce.
We started packaging everythingin individual bags so you didn't
have to touch the produce.
I remember going to our wholesalerwhere I got a lot of stuff.
And man, there were likefights over toilet paper.
And paper towels andanything that was there.
People were just buying anything.
(03:29):
I remember I would go to the,I would go to the wholesaler.
And I would just get whatever I could get.
Because that's what everyone was doing.
It was a ton of panic buying.
I'd bring it to the store.
I'd drop it off.
And then I'd head back.
And I'd turn back around again.
And I'd do the same thing.
And by the time I got back tothe store again, a couple hours
later, a lot of the stuff was gone.
It was the most.
amazing experience.
(03:52):
I think that you talk about sci fi.
I mean, that was what was happening herewhen we were going through this thing.
And then all the lockdownstarted and everyone was
like, yay, healthcare workers.
And I remember like at five o'clockor something like that, people
would play music and ring bells orsomething or something like that.
I don't remember exactly what itwas, all this kind of this rallying
behind supporting each other andbeing part of this neighborhood
(04:14):
and being part of the city.
And then some crazy stuff happened.
Okay, as we learned more atafter the lockdowns, I supported
the lockdowns at the beginning.
It was like, we don't knowwhat we're dealing with.
We don't know what this is.
So I was like, yes, we should.
You know, take a time out.
Let's all take a pause on society.
Let's take a pause, just a moment, andlet's just figure out what this is, but
(04:37):
in the coming days and in the comingweeks, we started to learn and we started
learning more that this coronavirus, thiscoronavirus, this thing that we didn't
know a lot about was really affecting asmall targeted people, people with pre
existing conditions, older, the elderly,um, and, and things along those lines.
We knew that.
We knew that was what was happening andwhat we should have done at that point
(05:02):
is, in my opinion, we should have focusedmore on protecting this group of people
instead of just a blanket kind of thing.
There were a lot of people that wereafraid to go out that probably could
have helped in certain situations andthey didn't because they were scared
because that was what we were told to be.
We were told to be scared andwe were told to stay home.
But there were probably people that couldhave helped more people in this situation.
(05:26):
So if we knew this was something thatwas only affecting the elderly or
people with pre existing conditions, ifyou were relatively healthy, you'd be
okay as long as you took precautions.
Those people could have donemore home delivery services.
They could have done more, um, aid.
They wouldn't have been as afraidto go out and help their elderly
neighbors if they needed help.
You know, so we kind of look at that.
(05:47):
And then the otherstrangest thing happened.
Where they said, you know,grocery stores, right?
They started limiting the number ofpeople, started making aisles one way.
And then this is what really got me.
They're saying spread out, right?
Social distance, six feet apart, all this.
But why is it that grocery stores,like, you know how they have
two different entrances, oneon one side, one on the other?
(06:08):
They closed one entrance.
And they took all the people andthey forced them into one entrance.
When we're supposed to be spreading out,I don't know why they closed one entrance.
They should have made one entrancegoing in and one entrance going out.
You know, one door in, one door out.
It spreads people.
It creates that flow, but insteadthey closed that and that, that was
a, that was a bad idea because itforced everybody back together again.
(06:30):
In Long Beach here, our mayor atthe time, Robert Garcia, closed
beaches, closed public sidewalks,closed the parks, closed everything
that was supposed to be outside.
Where it was already determined thatwas the best place to be is outside.
So he closed the bike paths and allthis, but people are creatures of Habit.
They're still gonna get their workouts in.
They're still gonna go to the gyms.
They're just gonna adapt.
(06:52):
And I remember there was a lot ofpeople one day out on the sidewalks
walking their dogs, riding theirbikes, getting their exercise.
I remember over the, you know, on thebike paths, they have all the playground
equipment, or not the playground,the gym equipment, stuff like that.
There's yellow caution tape allover this, and it's all torn off.
Well, people were using this.
I'm just like, well,that's not going to work.
(07:12):
You got to put yellowcaution tape around this.
People are just going to tear it off.
People are going to do whatthey're going to do, right?
So, the craziest thing to me, thecraziest thing, is that closing these
beaches and closing the bike pathsput everybody onto the sidewalk.
Where everyone's out, and so now becauseall this is closed, we consolidated more
(07:32):
people into a smaller amount of space.
You know, this is Long Beach.
Long Beach.
We got our name becausewe have a long beach.
Beachfront.
That was the whole thing.
That could have easily helped spreadout all this, but they didn't.
They put us all in two tiny spots onthe sidewalk where we were passing each
other, rubbing shoulders with each other.
You know, we consolidatedall these people.
(07:52):
And I remember at the time,our mayor saying something
like, Why is everybody outside?
You should be at home.
It's like, come on now.
April, May, we're in, we'rein March, April right now.
You know how the weather is.
It's gorgeous outside.
People want to be outside.
You're not gonna keep them inside.
So, We should have opened up everything.
I remember vividly too, there wasthis surfer, I think it was in Santa
(08:13):
Monica, and surfer, out in the water,all by himself, away from everybody.
And because the beaches were closed, theysent this police helicopter to go and
arrest him after he got out of the water.
I was like, are you kidding me?
I mean this is exactlywhat we should be doing.
Solo activities, out in themiddle of nowhere, by yourself.
(08:35):
That's what's supposedto be protection, right?
That's, that's supposed to be,be by yourself, get away, stay
outdoors, get plenty of fresh air.
So I think too extensive ofa lockdown kind of hurt us.
The other thing that I think really hurtus at the time was the mask mandate..
(08:57):
And let me rephrase that.
It's not necessarily the maskmandate, but I don't think people were
properly trained on how to use masks.
I remember there was this time whereeverybody became a seamstress, right?
Everybody started making masks.
They started putting logos on it.
Companies started bandwagoningand putting things on there.
But these cloth, these cloth masks are notMedically, they're, they're not like the
(09:20):
N95 masks that everybody was scammeringfor, the, the medical masks that you
use in surgeries or anything like that.
These are just pieces of cloth that asyou're breathing in and out, You know,
saliva and all your things as you'retalking gets caught up in it, and
because it's this heavy material, it justsits there, and you're breathing it in
constantly, and what even got me is whenyou didn't have to wear a mask, people
would take it off, right, and then theywould put it on the table, or they would
(09:44):
put it, um, on their dash, or they wouldput it on the front seat of their car,
or something like that, but they wouldput it face down, and if you don't know
how germs work, if there's something ona surface, That you put your mask down,
and it absorbs into the mask, and thenyou pick your mask up, and you put it
up on your face, now you're breathing inwhatever it is that was just picked up.
(10:07):
Like, I didn't use those things.
I used paper masks.
They got changed every four hours.
It got changed wheneverI didn't need it anymore.
So, you go out to a restaurant back whenwe were doing this, and you take your mask
off, you come back in, you get a new one.
You always are recycled.
I didn't get COVID at all.
And I was out and aboutdoing a lot of work.
Again, I was working in grocery stores.
I was out in the public everysingle day during the lockdowns.
(10:29):
Whether working on a constructionproject at the bar, or working at
the store, or running and picking upproduct, I was, I was out and about
every single day during the lockdown.
Didn't get COVID at all, because thismask mandate, I took it as a, as a,
okay, there's a mandate, I'll wear it.
Not a problem.
Um, I think that's the right thing to do.
(10:49):
I had that knowledge to say, I can'tjust wear it, I've got to change it out,
I've got to swap it out, I've got tochange these, you know, it just can't
be that same one, and it seemed to me,and you can think about this too and
see if it applies to you, it seemed tome that the people that were getting
COVID were the ones that were strictlyadhering to all of the Rules that were
(11:13):
set aside, especially like the mask.
They were wearing the same mask.
They weren't washing it.
You know, they say it was the samemask for days after days after days.
We should have had better education.
And saying, you gottachange this stuff up.
You need to, you know, youcan't keep using the same ones
over and over and over again.
That's just me.
I don't know.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not a this.
But there's some common sensethat comes into play here.
(11:34):
You know, when we're trying to spreadout, we need to open up as much
public space as we can, not close it.
When we're putting things in ourface, on our mouths, it needs to
be sterile, it needs to be clean.
It can't just be something that you justpicked up and stuck on your face again.
That's not the bestthing, you can't do that.
That's, that's goingagainst the entire thing.
(11:54):
We didn't have enough Education about howto prepare your PPP for small business.
There was a ton of fraudin that, by the way.
That was just absolutelyridiculous as we look back at that.
And so many businesses, so manybusinesses, especially when I was down
here on Pine, closed and never recovered.
And that's, and that's sad.
(12:17):
When something that happened beyondyour control, Forced you to close,
and then the government really wasn'tthere to take care of your needs.
We're talking about businesseswith, um, unapologetic landlords.
We're talking about just cashflow, credit card debts, loans,
mortgage notes, all these things.
(12:38):
Everyone got screwed from the top down.
There's not many peoplethat I know that came out.
You know, ahead because of the COVIDlockdowns, there's not a community that
I know that got ahead or is better offtoday because of the COVID lockdowns.
Everyone is still trying to recover.
And man, I just think lookingback at this, I remember saying
(13:02):
when TV shows started coming back, right?
And they were wearing masks in these TVshows and they were trying to be timely.
I said, I remember saying, Hey, Atsome point in the future, people are
going to look back at this TV show asa rerun, and they're going to go like,
What were they thinking at that time?
What were they doing?
Why were they having this?
What were they doing?
What were they thinking?
They were rerun.
(13:23):
You know, what was going on?
I just don't get it.
I just don't get the I just don't getwhat people were thinking at the time.
So I think that we overly did it.
I think that there wasway too much happening.
That didn't make sense.
We should have focused on protectingthe vulnerable people of our population
(13:45):
and providing more resources to thosethat weren't necessarily needing it.
And, don't get me wrong, I'm not oneof those conspiracy theorists that say
COVID was all made up and I'm not one ofthose that are saying any of that, right?
I'm not saying that itdidn't exist, it did.
But, I just think that We put too muchfear into people that had nothing to fear.
(14:11):
We put people who were already afraidand gave them more reasons to be afraid.
We told people, watch out, watchout, watch out, when really we
should have been saying it's okay.
(14:32):
We'll get through this, it's notthat bad, as long as dot, dot, dot.
We should have never closed.
Once, okay, let me, I was going to say weshould have never closed the schools, we
should have never closed the businesses.
We should have.
But only during those initial 10or 15 days to flatten the curve.
Not for the months and monthsand months that we closed.
(14:53):
I mean, that was government oversightand government control at its finest.
That was absolutely insane.
Because you know why?
These politicians created so muchfear at the beginning, they couldn't
10 days, 2 weeks, 3 weeks later comeback and say, Oh, okay, we were wrong.
Oops, sorry.
You know, these guys willnever get elected again.
There's going to be these people thatwill be out there saying like, see, we
didn't, but the damage of two or threeweeks wouldn't have been anywhere near
(15:16):
as bad as the damage of the monthsand months and months that we had.
We closed down.
We closed down.
on March 19th.
We didn't open again untilthe first week of June.
That's April, May, six weeks, ortwo months there, eight weeks, two
weeks, ten, eleven weeks, I think itwas, that we were shut down before
we opened again in limited capacity.
And that was just bars andrestaurants, I'm sorry, that was
(15:39):
just restaurants and not even bars.
That was just certain restaurants,that was just certain criteria
that Kind of reopened up again.
I remember at the bar We were ableto open as a restaurant with food and
dining and all that and I didn't knowwhat to do My staff had all left.
I had part time staff overthere and during lockdowns.
They couldn't go to schoolThey couldn't make money.
So they all left Some a lot of them Ihad a lot of college kids that were going
(16:01):
to Long Beach State and they had to goBack home to Fresno to go live with their
parents and stuff like that because theycouldn't pay rent They couldn't get a job.
They couldn't make their,you know, pay their expenses.
So they, so when we were allowed to openagain, I had to hire a whole new staff.
And I said, I remember Italked to this one person.
I only hired one person, Tom.
I said, Tom, hey, listen, I know we canopen on whatever date it was in June.
(16:22):
I said, but just because we can opendoesn't mean people are going to show up.
So I don't know what to expect.
And you know what happened?
Man, that, that appetite forjust getting out was huge.
We had lines out the door.
There was tons of people around.
It was just two of usrunning around like crazy.
I was like, we got to start hiring.
Like, let's bring some people in.
I was amazed that with all the fear,after being locked down for those 11
(16:48):
weeks, that people were like, get me out.
I want to get back to life.
I want to get back to normal.
And if politicians were actuallywatching what people were saying and
their level of confidence, we shouldhave closed or stopped the lockdowns
and said, guys, we're all adults here.
You have the information.
You have the truth.
We know who this is affecting.
(17:08):
We know who it's not affecting.
We know we're working on a vaccine.
We know that we havethese mandates in here.
So use your best judgment.
You know, we, we brought in thatUSS Mercy hospital ship and we
brought that into the port of LA.
And it was never used.
I mean, I appreciate the, the thinkingof planning for the worst case scenario
and bringing it in here was a huge score.
(17:30):
But by the time that it got here,and by the time that we were going
through the opening processes of thebusiness and stuff, we didn't need it.
It was never, no one ever stayed on it.
So, fortunately, fortunately,we didn't need it.
But we should have opened up a lot faster,but it's these politicians holding on.
(17:51):
To that control, that was just insane.
So, that was my take on it.
I just, it was five years ago.
I just look back and go, man, I, I, Ican't believe It seemed like yesterday,
but it seemed like so long ago.
All at the same time.
So what do you think?
Leave me your commentsin the section below.
If you're a member on our Patreon,join us in our after show discussions.
That's where I want tohear what you have to say.
(18:13):
Uh, send me your soundbites andwe might be able to put them up
into a future episode as well.
That's it for this episodeof All in Long Beach.
Thanks for listening and I'llsee you in the next episode.
Speaker (18:24):
Thanks for listening to the all in Long Beach podcast.
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(18:47):
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