{"id":64844,"date":"2020-05-13T03:39:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T03:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/as-regional-businesses-reopen-many-in-farmington-remain-closed\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:09:22","slug":"as-regional-businesses-reopen-many-in-farmington-remain-closed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/as-regional-businesses-reopen-many-in-farmington-remain-closed\/","title":{"rendered":"As regional businesses reopen, many in Farmington remain closed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Nonessential
Nonessential businesses in San Juan County remain closed because of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham\u2019s May 1 public health order. The order is set to expire Friday, unless she extends it.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

FARMINGTON \u2013 While nonessential businesses in Durango and most of New Mexico begin to reopen, San Juan County remains under stricter restrictions. A new survey shows Farmington business owners are still being hit hard by the closures but are prepared to implement safety procedures to reopen.<\/p>\n

San Juan County \u2013 along with McKinley and Cibola counties, also in northwest New Mexico \u2013 were excluded from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham\u2019s May 1 order initially loosening restrictions on nonessential businesses. On Wednesday afternoon, Lujan Grisham announced the three counties would now be allowed to offer curbside pickup for retailers, and golf courses can operate with limited capacity. Yet the three counties, still lag behind the rest of the state, where retailers can open at 25% capacity and other looser restrictions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely frustrating,\u201d said President and CEO of the Farmington Chamber of Commerce Jamie Church about the business restrictions in place for San Juan County on Tuesday, before the governor\u2019s recent announcement. \u201cWe\u2019re in an interesting region, being only 40 minutes from the state line and having Durango be open.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Farmington Chamber of Commerce released the results of its survey conducted from April 15 to April 28 about how local businesses are coping with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey was a follow-up to one conducted in late March.<\/p>\n

The survey showed 83% of the 191 respondents said they would be able to implement safety precautions, such as limiting the number of customers in a store at one time and requiring customers to wear masks if allowed to reopen.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur business owners would be more than willing and ready to implement all of the hygiene and safety protocols. To be left out of the reopening plans (for New Mexico) is very frustrating,\u201d Church said.<\/p>\n

She added some local business owners like Ace Hardware of Farmington have even announced they would donate face coverings for local businesses to ensure all employees are protected.<\/p>\n

Twenty-three percent of business owners said business was down 70% to 90%, compared with only 13% who answered similarly in the first survey.<\/p>\n

When asked how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting their business, 23% of respondents said they had closed or would be closing their doors until further notice. In the first survey, 24% respondents said they had closed or would be closing until further notice.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome Chamber members are at the end here,\u201d Church said. \u201cIf they can\u2019t get (their business) open in some fashion, they\u2019re not sure they\u2019re going to be able to reopen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Church said she was encouraged that 60% of respondents said they had not laid off any employees, although she acknowledged that could have changed in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m surprised that number wasn\u2019t a bit higher, but it might be because of the PPP loans,\u201d she said, referring to the Paycheck Protection Program loans, part of the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.<\/p>\n

Church and others hope nonessential businesses in San Juan County will be able to catch up with the rest of the region.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe longer this goes on, the harder it\u2019ll be to reopen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

lweber@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Governor keeps restrictions in place for northwest New Mexico<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[431,799,28,29,668,443],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-64844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-general","tag-farmington","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64844"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88424,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64844\/revisions\/88424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64844"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=64844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}