SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Indoor restaurants, cinemas and gyms in San Francisco can reopen within 24 hours, an upbeat Mayor of London Breed announced on Tuesday as the county officially moved to a less restrictive tier as the rate of Coronavirus cases, hospital admissions, and deaths are falling nationwide in California.

San Francisco and Santa Clara counties in the Bay Area are joining five other counties to move to the second most restrictive level of operations. Much of the state’s population remains in the most restrictive purple class, including the Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego counties.

California reported an additional 2,533 confirmed COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, bringing the total number of known cases in the state to nearly 3.5 million. Officials also announced an additional 303 deaths, bringing the total to just under 52,500 deaths in the state from nearly 40 million.

“This is the beginning of a new day in San Francisco,” said Breed of Pier 39, a popular tourist area in picturesque Fisherman’s Wharf.

However, she warned residents to wear masks and maintain proper social distance, even when encouraging them to explore the city.

“When your waiter comes to your table, put on your mask. When you go to the bathroom, put your mask on, ”she said.

Several counties in the San Francisco Bay Area issued strict home stays almost a year ago before a statewide shutdown. Public health officials have largely been more cautious about reopening the economy than their counterparts in Southern California and other states.

Operations in San Francisco shut down in early December after several Bay Area counties were preemptively locked when the positivity rate rose and the case rate rose. Outdoor dining, outdoor museums, and some indoor and outdoor personal services reopened in late January after the state canceled its regional stay-at-home order, but the economic toll has been grim.

Housing and commercial rents plummeted as technicians who could work from anywhere did just that and fled to other parts of the state and county that were cheaper and had more leeway. Downtown restaurants that once fed crowds of hungry office workers and tourists for lunch have struggled.

Tourism is also struggling, as airline ticket purchases to San Francisco in late October and November fell 80% year-over-year – much worse than the US average – the city’s financial analysts said in a January report.

Residents’ cautious behavior may have further contributed to the economic downturn, financial analysts said, with data showing that San Francisco residents stayed more at home than residents of other California cities and even other Bay Area counties.

San Francisco’s famous cable cars have been out of service for a year and there is no schedule as to when they could return. The mayor said on social media Tuesday that they will be returning this year.

“Cable cars are part of the fabric of San Francisco. They attract tourists, they help our economy, and I’m not going to make them go away,” she said.

San Francisco, a city and county of about 900,000 pre-pandemic residents, has one of the lowest fall and death rates in the country. 34,000 new cases of the coronavirus and 422 deaths were reported on Tuesday.

Most of California’s 58 counties remain in the state’s most restricted tier. In addition to San Francisco and Santa Clara, the counties of El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Napa and San Luis Obispo also moved up one place, The Sacramento Bee reported on Tuesday.

For counties in the red row, indoor restaurants and cinemas may reopen with a capacity of 25% or up to 100 people, whichever is less. Fitness studios as well as dance and yoga studios can be opened with a capacity of 10%. Museums, zoos and aquariums can open indoor activities with a capacity of 25%.

Wineries can open outdoors with changes, but bars and distilleries that do not serve food may not. Other retail businesses like clothing stores and florists can increase their capacity from 25% to 50%.

AP reporter Kathleen Ronayne contributed from Sacramento, California.

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The San Francisco Theater History Timeline will get a new entry later this month when ownership of the iconic Orpheum and Golden Gate theaters change hands.

The Ambassador Theater Group, a UK-based live entertainment juggernaut with offices in London, New York, Sydney and Cologne, and venues across England, Germany and on Broadway, announced this week that it had acquired the Orpheum and Golden Gate theaters as well as the Fisher Theater in Detroit.

The theaters join a growing US portfolio that includes the Saenger in New Orleans, the Majestic in San Antonio and, starting in 2017, a 40-year lease for the Colonial in Boston, the historic testing ground off Broadway.

No motivation for the sale was provided by former owner Robert Nederlander, who said in a press release that he was “confident that the ATG team will continue to nurture and take over the strong foundation that we have established with these theaters in their respective communities it will be very successful in this next decade. “

Nederlander continues to operate the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts and the City National Civic of San Jose.

ATG, which bundles content, venues, tickets and services in its inventory, was founded by Sir Howard Panter and Rosemary Squire. As part of its strategy, the company has strong relationships with theater makers, including one with Sonia Friedman Productions, the vision of the haunting play “The Jungle,” which premiered at the Curran Theater in Spring 2019. Shortly thereafter, the two-part spectacle “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” followed, which took a break from COVID last year.

When most of the live entertainment in the US was indefinitely interrupted, ATG spokesman Rick Miramontez of New York agency DKC / O & M responded to a question at the time of this transaction: “ATG believes the theatrical landscape is back They are continuing their master plan to acquire theaters across the country, as they have in Europe. “He adds,” They also love the San Francisco market. It’s a goal and an important one. “

DKC / O & M is also the national representative of the Curran, owned and operated by Carole Shorenstein Hays, the former main partner of Nederlander on SHN-The Best of Broadway, the predecessor of BroadwaySF.

However, Miramontez, who had not commented on the Curran in connection with the Orpheum-Golden Gate acquisitions, confirmed that “Potter” will reopen as soon as security protocols allow and that no changes are planned for the local management of BroadwaySF. which promotes a season 2021-22 with some dates from July for the tour of the Tina Fey musical “Mean Girls”.

Broadway tours find their home at the Orpheum Theater on Market Street. (Courtesy BroadwaySF)

Theaters started out as movie houses

Opened in 1926, the 2,200-seat Orpheum Theater on Market Street near Hyde Street – originally called Pantages like its sister theater in Los Angeles – was home to the dwindling days of variety and silent films. Until the stock market crash of 1929, it was sold to RKO Studios, renamed and became the location for the first cinema. A few blocks away on Market and Taylor Streets, the 2,300-seat Golden Gate Theater is a few years older but has a similar history.

Both venues deteriorated in the 1960s when exercise habits changed. After the heyday of the widescreen Cinerama madness, the Golden Gate was a victim of the “twinning” trend, which was dividing large theaters to accommodate more shows. In 1972 it got dark.

The Orpheum was revived as a live entertainment venue in the 1970s with a nine-month production of “Hair” that fitted right into the sketchy mid-market scene. A few years later, the Civic Light Opera Company moved in, renovated it, and starred in 1977 with Debbie Reynolds in Annie Get Your Gun. They folded in 1981.

In the late 1970s, Carole Shorenstein Hays, daughter of a well-known real estate developer from San Francisco, and the high-ranking James Nederlander, a member of the legendary Broadway management family, teamed up to form the manufacturing and presenting company Shorenstein-Hays-. Nederlander offers “The Best of Broadway”. They bought and renovated the Golden Gate in 1979 and the Orpheum in 1981 and rented the Curran Theater on Geary Street. All three were then extensively renovated, most recently in 2018 for both the Golden Gate and the Curran.

Starting with “A Chorus Line” in 1979, SHN presented almost every Broadway hit that toured the country. Some productions “sat down” for a long time, including the record-breaking five-year run of “The Phantom of the Opera”, which began in 1993 at the Curran. Shorenstein Hays became a 1987 Tony winner for Fences and continued to build her presence on Broadway. (Since then she has made seven more trips to this podium.) Relations with Nederlander became strained over the proverbial “creative differences” and a lawsuit was initiated in 1991, but it was broken off.

The partnership finally ended in 2014 when Nederlander retained the Orpheum and Golden Gate and Shorenstein Hays took over full operations of the Curran and retained a non-operational stake in SHN. Lawsuits for non-compete violations followed, and the case was finally settled in 2019 when Shorenstein gave up her part of SHN, which was renamed BroadwaySF. The Orpheum and Golden Gate are now owned by the UK Ambassador Theater Group, and Shorenstein Hays retains ownership of the Curran.

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