Friends,
We want to share with you the work that Downtown Santa Barbara is doing to help businesses, nonprofits, and the community during this ever-changing pandemic. Our first concern is the health and safety of the individuals that live, work and frequent downtown. Businesses have practiced social distancing, updated business plans, and pivoted through the changing directives from the state and local authorities. We have been impressed with the sacrifices our downtown business community is making to help flatten the COVID-19 curve.
Yesterday, the City of Santa Barbara issued an emergency proclamation with the following directives:
- All bars, nightclubs, breweries, wineries, and tasting rooms in the City that do not serve food are closed to the public;
- Any bars, nightclubs, breweries, wineries, or tasting rooms in the City that serve food may remain open only for the purposes of continuing to prepare and offer food to customers via delivery service or to be picked up. Dine-in food service is prohibited;
- All restaurants and retail food facilities in the City shall be prohibited from serving food for consumption on their premises (except for cafeterias, grocery stores, pharmacies, food banks, and the airport concessionaires).
- All movie theaters, live performance and entertainment venues, bowling, and arcades are closed to the public; and
- All gyms and fitness centers are closed to the public.
Our work is currently focused on ensuring that changing federal, state, county, and city policies are communicated to our members and on advocating for our members. We have created a
resource page
on our website with information for businesses.
Some highlights from that page include:
There are many webinars taking place to assist businesses and nonprofits in the coming days. Some highlights include:
We are holding weekly telephone conferences with Visit Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara and Goleta Chambers of Commerce, Hospitality Santa Barbara, and WEV and will be participating in business retention strategic planning sessions spearheaded by Mayor Murillo.
During this time, social media and online marketing will be vitally important for businesses; and we stand ready to help. If you need help with online or social media marketing, please contact our Marketing Manager,
Tim Persson
for one-on-one assistance.
Our work is also focused on marketing and advertising for our members. We have created a
current promotions page
on our website (please check it and send us any updates you have). We are encouraging people to purchase gift certificates, shop online, write positive reviews online, share promotions on social media platforms, and to purchase take out or delivery.
Downtown Santa Barbara isn’t just one organization, it is made up of all the business owners, property owners, employees, and residents. We are resilient; we are a community; we are Downtown Santa Barbara!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
