City Council on Tuesday night adopted a resolution that encourages local businesses to implement social distancing best practices for the health and wellbeing of their customers and employees.
Councilman Gary Miller said the push for the resolution came from local health and infectious disease specialists who researched the practices of stores across the country.
“We see some stores in Danville that are doing part of these things, but we see stores that are abusing them badly,” Miller said.
Many stores in Danville are too crowded stores, he said.
“They are not policing how many go in their store,” Miller said. “… Our numbers (of confirmed coronavirus cases) are going up, not down. We need to continue to encourage social distancing.”
The resolution urges all businesses authorized to continue operation during the COVID-19 pandemic to implement the following procedures:
- Limit the number of patrons within the business to five people per 1,000 square feet.
- Clearly mark aisles within the business with one-way arrows to direct shoppers through the store.
- Require customers to observe six feet of separation at checkout lanes and place markings on the floor to encourage that amount of physical separation.
- Require all employees to wear masks covering both mouth and nose.
- Have a “store ambassador” at each entrance sanitizing shopping carts and limiting entry based on maximum capacity.
- Provide customers with a paper towel and disinfectant in order to clean hands and shopping cart handles.
- Encourage customers to purchase non-essential items online or by curbside pickup.
- Offer senior citizen hours.
- Allow customers with no access to internet to make phone-in orders.
“They are being practiced across the country,” Miller said. “These are the things we are encouraging. We have no authority to mandate any of these things, only the governor can do that.
The resolution was adopted as City Council members met in its first virtual City Council meeting in Danville’s history, with Council members and City staff logging in remotely.
The city is under a local state of emergency due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Earlier this month, City Council ratified the emergency declaration and adopted a resolution that allows for temporary changes to how public meetings are conducted to continue operations.
The changes enable meetings to proceed virtually during this local state of emergency.