Coronavirus? Not when it’s 78 degrees and there’s a beach nearby, apparently.
The Virginia Beach Oceanfront felt like summer in more ways than one Saturday as children ordered “blue and lellow” snow cones and bought hermit crabs, shoppers sampled fudge inside cramped gift shops and bikers pedaled on the boardwalk — with the usual complaints of people walking in the bike lane.
And that’s as the beach is considered closed.
While Virginia began to slowly relax some restrictions Friday for businesses and places of worship in the first of a three-phase approach — limiting indoor capacity to 50%, allowing outdoor dining but only if people sat at least 6 feet apart, requiring staff in some cases to wear masks — the state’s beaches remained restricted to fishing and exercise.
“There’s a lot of that going on,” said Conner Garrison, 21, with a hint of skepticism. He and Taylor Tripp, 21, of North Carolina, just across the Suffolk border, had gotten snow cones on the boardwalk near 16th Street. “I figured there would be nobody here,” Tripp said.
While the sprawling beach nearby was not at all packed, and groups were keeping their distance, there was no lack of beach blankets, towels, tents and umbrellas set up near the water.
Maria Parke, 45, of Virginia Beach sat near a blue tent, just steps from the ocean, and said she felt safer on the beach than the busy boardwalk. Nobody wants to be on top of each other, so all beachgoers were doing their part to keep their distance, she said.
On the boardwalk, it was easier to count the people wearing face masks than not. But it was still hard not to notice a woman without a mask sneeze, twice, then wipe her face before touching a beach guardrail. Or watch another woman press the switch on a beverage dispenser to get a sample of hot apple cider, then pet a stuffed turtle toy inside a store.
City workers were positioned at each beach entrance ? some wearing masks, some not. One told a man on a motorized scooter: “I’m going to need you on the bike path — you and your beautiful dog.” Another seemed to tell passersby asking about the people on the beach that didn’t seem to be exercising that, “they get up, they walk around a bit,” maybe swim.
Kayla Thomas, 19, and a coworker wore face masks and plastic gloves as they dished up snow cones from their Mimi’s Boardwalk Concessions at the Oceanfront stand.
“I’m just shocked by the amount of people,” Thomas said. She likened it to the crowds she might see in early summer.
Inside the Pier Gift Shops, there was a steady flow of customers to buy hermit crabs, shells and homemade fudge.
“I think everybody is just happy to be outside,” said Alyssia Montgomery, who worked the cash register at the shell shop and seemed happy to be working. “No one’s coming in and coughing on me,” she said, smiling. “So I’m grateful.”
Bruce Whitfield, 65, the brother of the Pier Gift Ship’s owner who worked the fudge counter inside, said they were working with a skeleton crew at the moment.
“A lot of our employees are afraid to come back,” he said.
He and others who work in the store have masks and, “we wear ’em sometimes,” but he said he’d have to keep flipping it up and down to talk to customers. He’s seen in-store traffic slow, too, during the pandemic. Normally, during the season, they see customers until midnight. Lately, it’s slowed down around 9 p.m.
Travis and Tamara Wolfe of Pendleton County in West Virginia were married two years ago in Virginia Beach and drove down Friday with friends Mike Weaver and Beth Hall to celebrate. On Saturday, they sat in a cordoned off area in a parking lot for lunch at Guad’s Mexican restaurant on 21st Street. They had the new “patio” all to themselves. “We’re ready to get this behind us,” Weaver said of the coronavirus, saying they didn’t think it was as big a deal as it’s been made out to be.
Back on the beach, Kim Menziff, 53, of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania put on her shoes after dipping them in the Atlantic Ocean.
“I’m so used to wearing a mask, I feel funny without it,” she said. She planned to go to lunch and sit down at the restaurant, outside of course, something she hasn’t been able to do where she lives.
Kimberly Pierceall, 757-550-1903, kimberly.pierceall@pilotonline.com
