L.A. County moved into the least restrictive “yellow” reopening tier, meaning on May 6, businesses will be able to expand their guest capacity and bars will likely be able to operate indoors for the first time since June 2020.

California introduced an intricate four-tier color coded system in August 2020 that decided how businesses could operate according to the rate of COVID-19 infections in the corresponding county.

The most restrictive purple tier meant infections in the county were widespread, but if infections decreased, counties could move into the red tier, followed by the moderate orange tier and finally the yellow tier, which meant the spread of COVID-19 was “minimal.”

L.A. County now qualifies for the yellow tier as daily COVID-19 infections dropped below 2 per every 100,000 residents for two straight weeks. The county also kept its positivity rate below 2% with a rate of 0.70%.

An updated order is expected from L.A. Public Health on Tuesday, so the below regulations may change slightly, depending if the county wants to put more restrictive measures than what the state recommends.

Bars May Now Operate Indoors

In the yellow tier, bars may be allowed to operate indoors at a 25% percent capacity for the first time since June 2020.

Regulations for bars varied throughout the tier system with the harshest restriction being full closures while in the purple tier. Once moved into the red tier, bars were allowed to open outdoors if they served food. Then in the orange tier, all bars, regardless if they served food or not, were allowed to reopen outdoors at a limited capacity, but still restricted indoor operations.

Pending approval from L.A. County Public Health, by California’s regulations, they will be operating in a semi-usual manner.

Places Open at 50% Capacity

Multiple businesses will be allowed to operate at 50% capacity including restaurants, churches, movie theaters, hotels, gyms, wineries, breweries and distilleries.

These sectors were already operating indoors once they moved into the orange tier back in April, but the capacity will be the largest allowed during the pandemic.

Sports Stadiums

In the yellow tier, stadiums will be allowed to open at 67% capacity, which for Dodger Stadium means more than 38,000 fans.

For Banc of California Stadium where LAFC plays, it will mean more than 14,000 fans may be able to attend.

The newly minted SoFi Stadium in Inglewood would be allowed close to 47,000 fans to watch the Rams and Chargers.

The Rose Bowl and Los Angeles Coliseum would be allowed capacities of more than 60,000 and 52,000, respectively.

All of these capacity limits will also be at the discretion of the teams.

Theme Parks

Universal Studios Hollywood and Six Flags Magic Mountain may be allowed to operate at 35% of their maximum capacities. Under the orange tier the two theme parks have been operating at 25% capacity.

Neighboring Orange County will not move into the yellow tier quite yet, as they did not meet the metric of less than 2 positive cases per 100,000 residents. While Disneyland is now open in Anaheim, it will be required to keep its capacity at 25% at the moment. Orange County’s other major theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm is not planning a reopening of its park until May 21.

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