Doing business: Officials see compliance with store hours order

St. Mary Parish residents are doing well at complying with executive orders issued by Parish President David Hanagriff, including during the Easter weekend, city and parish leaders said this week.
The orders, which have been in effect since April 6, limited the hours of grocery stores, dollar stores, convenience stores and pharmacies to 6 a.m.-8 p.m. daily. Exceptions were permitted for outside operation of fuel pumps at gas stations and 24-hour pharmacies using drive-through service. Also, the number of people who could be inside the businesses at one time was limited to 35% of the capacity determined by the state fire marshal.
“I think for the most part, everything’s going smoothly,” Hanagriff said. “Of course, like anything else, we’re going to have certain situations and instances where people aren’t complying, but the stores, for the most part, are doing a great job.
“All our large grocery stores, they’ve put policies in place, and they’ve really stepped up.”
St. Mary Parish Sheriff Blaise Smith said his office has received more phone calls from the public to get a better understanding of the things that are permitted.
“Sometimes when they hear from a voice of some sort of authority, they seem to believe it more than if they read it,” he said.
Berwick Mayor Duval Arthur said the guidance provided by parish leaders during this time is what citizens needed.
“They just needed the instructions, because I know deep down they all want to be safe,” he said.
The parish’s executive orders are set to expire April 30, and while Hanagriff said it is too early to tell if that order will be extended, he currently has no plans to do so.
“Our numbers are stabilizing with the exception of the nursing home in Franklin,” Hanagriff said of Legacy nursing facility. “Our numbers actually aren’t bad as far as cases and the spread.”
As of Monday night, there were two deaths, while 23 residents and six staff members were infected with the virus.
Hanagriff said the state is involved with trying to stop the spread at the nursing facility, which is the source of the parish’s rising cases.
He said when the return to a more familiar way of life in the parish happens, it will be an “easing” back in.
Hanagriff said he would recommend the elderly and those with underlying conditions remain under a stay-at-home order because he said they are where the “disproportionate number of the deaths that are occurring here.” He anticipates that order staying in effect until May and potentially June.
The remainder of the population could begin slowly going back to their normal routines, possibly first with relinquishing the executive orders and hopefully open more restaurants and other things, Hanagriff said.
“At one point, we have to go back to work, and we have to get back to some type of normal life here,” Hanagriff said.
He said with guidance from parish officials, citizens can achieve those goals.
During the current situation, parish leaders said that following the guidelines is something not just for the citizens.
“We’re doing the same thing, following the guidelines set forth by the governor,” Morgan City Mayor Frank “Boo” Grizzaffi said of him and his family.
In Patterson, Mayor Rodney Grogan implemented a dusk-to-dawn curfew of 8 p.m.-6 a.m. daily shortly before the parish’s mandates came.
Grogan said he had to implement it to slow what had become a high amount of COVID-19 cases in the city.
He said the measures from the city and the parish have kept people off the streets.
“It’s like a ghost town in Patterson,” he said.
While he said the city did hold a Good Friday program at City Hall, Grogan said it was streamed live on Facebook and played on the radio and citizens practiced social distancing, staying in their cars.
He said equipment was sanitized after each of the event’s seven speakers addressed the crowd.
Grogan said the curfew in Patterson would stay in effect until further notice and that instituting it was never meant to trample on anyone’s rights.
“I’m not going to impose something on someone that I’m not going to appreciate … but when I knew basically the numbers and as they were coming back and they were more favorable towards Patterson, that’s why I got together with the chief and I discussed it with the council and moved forward,” he said.