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Businesses consider opening back up at the direction of Annapolis mayor

Until the store is allowed 50% capacity, Old Fox Books and Brown Mustache will continue doing what they have been during the lockdown.
Paul W. Gillespie / Capital Gazette
Until the store is allowed 50% capacity, Old Fox Books and Brown Mustache will continue doing what they have been during the lockdown.
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The night a pottery business owner found out that Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley moved to open up businesses faster in a decision beyond county guidance, Kristin Quirk Clevenger said it surprised her.

“We were going to move and prepare to open anyway — it looked like we were going in that direction,” Quirk Clevenger said. “Now we will move faster.”

On Friday, Buckley went against Anne Arundel County guidelines for businesses within the city of Annapolis. Buckley met with downtown Annapolis business owners in an online meeting and said stores can allow one customer to enter a store at a time.

The city direction to reopen businesses strays away from the county executive’s administration’s approach, in which retail stores are allowed to reopen but for curbside pickup.

Hair salons and barbershops can only have one customer at a time.

Quirk Clevenger, co-owner of Quirk-n-Bach Pottery located between Spa Creek and Back Creek, said the store is not ready to open.

“We are not quite ready yet but we will as soon as we can. This comes at a total surprise,” she said.

Before the Friday announcement, the pottery store created an online shopping website for customers to use during the statewide restrictions on businesses.

Throughout the experience, Quirk Clevenger said her customers kept saying they could not wait until the store reopened so they could come in and support.

“For us little guys, the brick and mortar businesses, people really like to see everything in person. They like to touch it and feel it,” she said.

But in a time of COVID-19 where the virus spreads quickly, the pottery store experience will have to readjust.

“All of us business owners have to completely rethink how we do business and we need time to prepare — for employees and for customers,” Quirk Clevenger said.

Other businesses are still adjusting to the changes of in-person shopping.

Before the reopen plan, Clay Bakers set up curbside pickup. Customers would call ahead to receive packaged pottery, according to the website. Before coronavirus restrictions, customers would walk in to select pottery to paint but that has had to change, Jasmine Whiting, a manager, said.

The store will keep up with curbside pick up and limited entry into the store. Whiting said the business is considering reservations and may not rely on the walk-in approach.

Local By Design will be implementing a soft opening with limited hours this weekend adhering to the strict safety guidelines put in place by Gov. Hogan.

Local By Design will be requiring a mask be worn and only one person or a couple in the store at a time. Also, all surfaces frequently touched will be sanitized between each customer.

Old Fox Books and Brown Mustache Coffee will both continue serving customers through its pick up window and by carry out. Old Fox Books also delivers books three times a week in a 15-minute radius of the store. The store hours are 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. daily.

“The change for us is not much of a difference, the idea of not having people in the shop is OK for us,” said owner Virginia Amundson.

Until the store is allowed 50% capacity, Old Fox Books and Brown Mustache will continue doing what they have been.

Customers have been gravitating to ‘Blind Date With A Book’ since this pandemic has been going on.

“They tell us a genre they like and we pick it out a book then wrap it up for them,” Amundson said. “We have become more of a personal shopper for people. They don’t know want they want so we do a lot of picking for them.”

Amundson and her partner Janice Holmes are considering having books curbside or in the store’s garden for people to browse.

“The hard thing is having one person in the shop or two people, it just doesn’t make sense for us,” Amundson said. “We are a community center, where people want to be in and browse. We are known for being cozy and people like to stay for hours, so we are trying to figure out how we can give that sense of magic to the community.”