Shut-down shops in the Florida Keys start to reopen. But where are the customers?
No one who owns a retail store in Key West expected to rake in the cash this week.
With no tourists allowed in the Keys and state-imposed restrictions, business was, well, what you would expect.
Things were slow and customers scarce.
But retailers still showed up to put out their open signs. Then they waited for locals to appear. Meanwhile, two checkpoints remain at the entrances to the island chain to keep out visitors and tourists.
“I really wanted to open for my clients,” said Sandra Cusimano, who owns the Greene Street Cigar Company, 540 Greene St., which has a walk-in humidor and a bar that these days sits idle. “Some of them, they really like cigars. That’s my business, 80 percent of my business.”
Cusimano stood in an empty store Tuesday afternoon, wearing her mask and showing a visitor around the humidor. She has a lot of loyal customers, she said, and on Monday, when she opened, had a few sales.
“I’m here because I want all the locals to know we’re in business,” said Cusimano, a native of Lima, Peru, who moved to Key West 22 years ago from Miami. “Even though we’re not making money, we’re opening.”
Retail stores, along with restaurant dining rooms, were allowed under the governor’s orders to turn on the lights again and welcome people inside, as long as the businesses didn’t go over 25 percent capacity.
The shopping scene along Key West’s main drag, Duval Street, has been slow to get going, said Scott Atwell, CEO and executive vice president of the Key West Chamber of Commerce.
“Anything corporately owned will be slow to open.” Atwell said. “Keep in mind, Duval Street is getting repaved.”
The city’s Duval Street repaving project runs from Front Street to Truman Avenue and has left some streets shut off to traffic.
“I’m certain many are waiting for that to be done as it would interfere with business anyway,” Atwell said.
Divers Direct, also on Greene Street near Duval Street, had its doors open Tuesday and reported business wasn’t bad.
“Locals are getting out on their boats and on the water,” said Sage Cooney, an assistant manager.
Locals were coming in for dive gear, speargun supplies and to get scuba tanks filled, Cooney said. After all, she said, it is grouper season, and hogfish season opened May 1.
In Florida, gyms, bars and personal services, such as hair salons, nail salons and spas, remain closed.
“Believe me, everybody is asking about that,” said Monroe County Mayor Heather Carruthers, who joked that she could use a trip to the stylist before going on Facebook Live to take questions from Keys residents. “I don’t know when that’s going to happen.”
Carruthers said leaders will monitor how this first phase of reopening — restaurant dining rooms and non-essential retail — is going amid the pandemic.
“We’re going to wait to see how this baby step of 25 percent goes,” Carruthers said. “If we’re not seeing an increase or spike in cases we’ll move to the next step. The health department would like to see two weeks between steps. We have other pressures we’re looking at.”
Carruthers noted the Keys haven’t seen any uptick in cases. On Tuesday, the county had 80 known cases and 1,402 people have been tested Keyswide, as of Tuesday afternoon.
Asked if she’s planning to dine out soon, Carruthers said possibly.
“I have two little kids so there aren’t that many restaurants we go to,” Carruthers said. “Certainly, some of them that might be outdoors, we might go to some of them.”
Opening retail stores was at least an opportunity for some employees to get back to work, said David Sieminski, who co-owns Leathermaster, a costume and fetish shop that’s been around since the 1990s and specializes in handmade leather items.
Sieminski has limited store traffic to two customers at a time and has hand sanitizer ready. He said he opened Monday to focus on online sales and to start making products to sell later this year.
“We do not expect very much foot traffic, as we would after a storm evacuation,” Sieminski said. “Continuity is important. Just as we do in our private lives, a business must adapt to the new normal. This is how we do it.”
Yoni and Jessica Haim, who own five retail stores on Duval Street, had Southern Tide’s doors open Monday but on Tuesday were trying their luck at their store Tropically Hip. They’re opening a store here and there, saying business isn’t big enough to hire employees again.
“We made one sale,” Yoni Haim said at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday while at Tropically Hip, 607 Duval St. “What are we going to do? This is a nightmare.”
Until the checkpoints come down and tourists are allowed back into the Keys, the Haims say retailers won’t be able to make a true living.
“That is not my theory, that’s reality,” said Yoni Haim.
For now, they’ll do what they can under the rules.
“We’re going to every day come here and open,” he said.
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 5:28 PM.
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