Restaurant reopens after deep cleaning when employee tests positive for COVID-19

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - With more and more cases of COVID-19 being confirmed across the nation and more people traveling, the chances of employees at our favorite stores, businesses, and restaurants having the virus are also increasing.

Such was the case this past weekend at The Beacon Bar & Grill in South Lake Tahoe.

An employee showed up for work on Saturday, June 20, and informed management he was running a fever. They immediately sent the employee home. A COVID-19 test taken on Sunday confirmed he was positive for the virus on Tuesday.

Once the popular beach-side bar and restaurant were notified they closed the doors and started a thorough deep cleaning. This is the protocol of The Beacon, but not every place of business has such a stringent set of rules.

"We run the restaurant in the best interest of all," explained General Manager Jim Furiosi. "We closed immediately and contacted all health officials."

Furiosi said most of their employees have followed up with COVID-19 testing of their own.

On Saturday when the Beacon employee came in with a fever the restaurant served about 1,500 people between the beach and restaurant according to their executive chef. Beachgoers were not socially distancing and we're standing shoulder-to-shoulder outside of their property, he said.

This is not the first Lake Tahoe business to close after an employee tested positive. Raley's in Incline Village also closed to deep clean as well as a popular Mexican restaurant in that community.

El Dorado County's Environmental Health department is not required to go out to visit a restaurant or bar that has an employee who has tested positive, though they do. The health official will provide proper guidance on how to clean appropriately. They do not tell the restaurant they have to close for a certain amount of time though the County's Public Health department can ask a business to close for up to 14 days for the incubation period.

Environmental Health will say a place can reopen when their cleaning has been completed.

When people test positive for COVID-19 their local health department will then follow a contact tracing formula of finding anyone potentially exposed to them. They will inform those people of things they should do at that point.

To keep from spreading the coronavirus people need to wear masks, wash their hands often, and be six-feet apart when in public. The governors of both California and Nevada have issued directives for people to wear masks in order to prevent the spread and the possibility of another quarantine and shut down of businesses and services.