Amid pandemic, some struggle to abide by new distancing demands

August 28, 2024

The line outside the Panam International supermarket in Northwest Washington looped along 14th Street, nearly three dozen shoppers, half wearing masks to protect themselves from the coronavirus.

Yet most of the patrons stood only a foot or two apart, ignoring sidewalk markings and public health warnings to stay six feet away. The employee monitoring the crowd at the entrance on Saturday in Columbia Heights offered no reminders as the line grew over the course of a few minutes. The police cruiser parked across the street was unoccupied.

“There’s no space,” Maria Martinez, 48, wearing rubber gloves and a mask, said as she anxiously eyed the line behind her. But the sense of risk did not dull her purpose. “I need to buy food for my family,” she said. “This is where I come.”

In the weeks since the novel coronavirus turned into an international crisis, the rhythms of daily life across the Washington region have been altered by a sheaf of new rules and guidelines that urge people to stay at home except for grocery shopping and exercise and to maintain distance when in public.

A preponderance of the population appears to have accepted the regulations, but a tour of the District over the course of Easter weekend suggested there were outliers — people who carry on as usual in a region where the virus has killed more than 400 and infected thousands more.

Those exceptions could be found in a range of neighborhoods, from poorer to wealthier, with not all having the luxury of spacious homes to abide by the distancing rules that the virus has forced on the city.

At lunchtime Saturday, 10 men congregated outside the shuttered King City Restaurant, a carryout on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. Marcus McNeely, 31, recently laid off from his warehouse job, wore no mask or gloves and expressed surprise that the pandemic is causing such widespread fear.

No one he knows is sick, McNeely said. “There’s a million diseases out there, and everyone is worried about this one,” he said.

A few miles south in Anacostia, Devonte Jefferson, 27, and Larry Buckner, 18, stood in a parking lot outside a strip mall. Neither wore protective covering. The virus’s potential danger, they said, does not compare to the day-to-day threat of violence they have endured living in Southeast Washington.

“I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies after shootings,” Jefferson said. “We don’t worry about problems like this.”

A week ago, large crowds at the Wharf in Southwest Washington prompted the District to shut down the fish market and allowed it to reopen only after the businesses came up with a plan to ensure that shoppers kept their distance.

As an added precaution, the District deployed the police and National Guard.

On Saturday, a couple hundred people waited their turn, some abiding reminders from a security officer to separate when they drifted too close together. “He’s not even six feet away from us when he’s telling us what to do,” said Sade Barber, 26, of Alexandria, as she waited, a mask over her face.

The police made themselves visible at Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill and at Meridian Hill Park on 16th Street NW, where an officer in one of the two cruisers present said people could sit on benches for 15 minutes and discouraged anyone from settling in to, say, read a book.

The park was largely vacant Saturday when Andrew Small, 30, the author of an urban affairs newsletter, and his girlfriend, Sarah, stopped during a bike ride to rest on a bench. After 10 minutes, a National Guardsman approached.

“ ‘Hey, I’m sorry, no one is allowed to sit on the benches,’ ” the guardsman said, Small recalled. “ ‘You have to keep moving.’ ”

Dustin Sternbeck, a spokesman for the D.C. police, said the District is encouraging residents to use parks to exercise but not to play sports or linger. “Too many people are congregating,” he said.

The police and National Guard were not present at all parks.

At Kalorama Park on Columbia Road NW, several basketball players shot hoops on Sunday, ignoring a sign that said the court was closed. On a grassy field, people sat on lawn chairs.

The day before, more than a few dozen people — couples and small groups — could be found on blankets, many trying to maintain distance.

“I just came out to get some air,” said a 67-year-old man, a translator, who spoke on the condition on anonymity, a mask over his face as he sat on a bench. “I am very aware of what the mayor says. No one is sitting next to me. I’m trying to be very careful. It’s a very scary time.”

A few yards away, Aidan O’Shea, 30, who works in public relations, sat on a blanket with his partner, Kathleen O’Donnell. They said they had brought along a soccer ball and planned to exercise. They had masks in their backpack.

“I feel comfortable in my ability to take precautions and get some fresh air,” O’Shea said.

Mindy Moretti, who walks her dog several times a day in the neighborhood, said she has seen fewer people out in the past two weeks. But she finds herself frustrated at times by the number of people she still sees lounging in parks and the runners competing for space on sidewalks with pedestrians.

Conceiving of a proper governmental response remains challenging, though.

“I would like there to be better regulation, but what is that?” she said. “I don’t know how you enforce it without infringing on people’s rights. And if you’re going to infringe on people’s rights, it has to be everyone’s rights.”

Since March 16, when Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) issued emergency orders shuttering nonessential services, police have given out 21 citations to 18 businesses for allegedly violating those orders. Although no fines have been levied, penalties range as high as $5,000.

The businesses cited for allegedly violating the mayor’s order include a Friendship Heights vape shop and a McDonald’s at the Capital One Arena, where officers said they found patrons eating at tables three times. In a statement, McDonald’s said the health of its employees and customers “is our top priority” and that it has taken steps to enhance “our robust hygiene standards.”

The day after the mayor’s order took effect, police officers observed “several customers” inside the Ugly Mug on Barracks Row “being served alcoholic drinks in glasses while waiting for take out food,” according to the report.

Gaynor Jablonski, the Ugly Mug’s owner, called the citation “absolutely ridiculous,” considering that he has had to lay off 25 employees and lost three-quarters of a million dollars in business.

“The city comes in and shuts me down and now they’re busting me over one of my employees trying to make some extra tips by pouring somebody a drink while they wait for the food,” he said.

At the Felicity Lounge on H Street NE, police said they saw a go-go band playing for more than two dozen patrons, all of whom departed through a rear exit as officers went in. The club’s manager and owner could not be reached Friday.

Despite the enforcement, Bowser has repeatedly said she prefers persuasion over penalties to convince people to abide by the order.

“Nobody wants the police department to be policing people about standing six feet apart,” the mayor said. “It’s impractical in a lot of ways.”

But it’s an open question whether the public can exercise the discipline to stay far enough apart.

At Florida Avenue and North Capitol Street NW, more than a dozen men — some in chairs, some standing — clustered at the perimeter of a vacant property.

Dennis Nicholson, 51, a bandanna around his neck that he said he uses as a mask, hung out at the edge of the gathering. He said most of the men show little concern about the prospect of getting sick. “They don’t understand — it’s like they have a mental depression,” he said. “I try to keep my distance.”

Five blocks south, at the corner of New York Avenue NW, men assembled outside the Big Ben Liquor store.

An officer in a patrol cruiser idled across the street.

The sign on the store’s door said, “Only two people at a time,” even as there were seven customers waiting to be served, no one moving even when one coughed. The man at the cash register, standing behind a wall of plexiglass, was the only one wearing a mask.

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