PRESS RELEASE

Long Beach, CA - Today, the City of Long Beach is announcing a free program to supply up to 1,000 face shields to Long Beach-based restaurants. The Health Order that went into effect last night, May 29, requires servers in restaurants to wear both cloth face coverings and face shields, in order to maximize protection for both the employee and patrons. In recognition that restaurants may not have easy immediate access to face shields this weekend, the City quickly developed this free program.

“We want to provide our restaurants and workers with the protection they need,” said Mayor Robert Garcia. “We will continue to implement programs to help our small businesses.”

As patrons in restaurants will not have face coverings on while eating, the risk of transmission to and from a server is higher, and the combination of the cloth face covering with the face shield provides additional protection.

Face shields are also a requirement in the Los Angeles County Health Order and is more stringent than other surrounding counties due to the higher numbers of cases in Los Angeles County. Long Beach adopted the same requirement as Los Angeles County, since the State variance to move ahead with allowing restaurants was based on a county-wide approval for health jurisdictions.

Restaurant representatives can pick up face shields in the parking lot of Long Beach Fire Department Headquarters located at 3205 Lakewood Boulevard. Shields are limited to five per location, and will be available on a first come, first served basis. Representatives will need to provide their name and the restaurant name.

Shields will be available for pickup today, Saturday, May 30, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and tomorrow, Sunday, May 31, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

For the latest information on COVID-19, with details on all that the City of Long Beach is doing to keep its residents safe, visit: longbeach.gov/COVID19 and follow @LongBeachCity on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.