Santa Barbara downtown businesses start slow reopening

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- Santa Barbara’s downtown businesses are starting to reopen, slowly. Friday was the first day California's Governor allowed certain businesses to open for curbside pickup.

Natasha Airisto is the owner of Natasha Boutique. She said Friday, "Getting some calls in today, we got some emails, and let's see what happens."

"Let's see what happens," is how business owners feel about reopening Friday. It's the beginning of Governor Gavin Newsom's second phase of reopening the state and business owners are learning as they go.

"At this point it's hard to say because we don't have the guidelines," said Airisto. "Hopefully next week we'll have more guidelines, what we are allowed to do, what we're not allowed to do, so at this point I just have to swing it."

Businesses including florists, clothing stores, books stores, music stores and sporting equipment stores can reopen for curbside pickup. Old Town Antiques is using social media to show customers what they can buy.

Paul Lewis is a co-owner of Old Town Antiques. He said, "Pictures of a lot of our items that are in our store, they'll contact us through Instagram and say they'd like to buy it, or look at it first then buy it. We do have appointments."

During the shutdown, Asher Market started making and selling cloth masks. Now the store is able to sell its normal merchandise but hopes it may have gained some new customers from the mask sales.

Ashley Hayes is the owner of Asher Market. She said, "All of the orders that I've gotten from people who are just buying masks, I'm hopeful that now that they're part of my audience, that I can resonate with them in other ways and offer them other things that I am selling."

All three businesses are eager to start seeing customers again and get back into the swing of things.

"Hip, hip, hooray," said Lewis. "Let's go. You know, we're ready to get back into it. And do it safely."