The Jersey Shore will be open for Memorial Day weekend.
Gov. Phil Murphy made the announcement at his Thursday news conference but also placed some restrictions on the opening slated for Friday, May 22.
Social distancing is required and there will be limitations on capacity and admissions. No special events can be held, and amusement park rides, playgrounds, picnics and water play areas are closed. Masks are encouraged but not required, Murphy said. The bathrooms will also be reopened at the state parks.
It will be up to the communities to determine how the rules are enforced.
“If people are not compliant, they will be dealt with,” Murphy said.
Sea Isle City Mayor Len Desiderio said police will be seen, but that is not out of the ordinary. He said he expects that everyone will be able to police themselves.
“I think the majority or most of the people that are going to be going to the beach know where we were and where we are now and what we have to do,” Desiderio said. “I don’t envision what happened recently in Naples, Florida where they opened the beach and had to close it because of noncompliance and not following the rules.”
New Jersey has been under a stay-at-home order since March 21. Thursday marked the second day in a row that Murphy has relaxed some of the rules. He issued an executive order on Wednesday allowing nonessential retailers to offer curbside service and nonessential construction projects to resume.
The state budget has taken hit and April revenues were down 60 percent. Murphy said the state’s budget numbers could get worse.
“I would hope if we can responsibly take reopening steps like the one we are talking about today that it doesn’t, but it could,” he said. “It could, in particular, if we stop complying, which I don’t think will happen because New Jersey has been number one in the American class in terms of doing the right thing, or if we have flare ups that hit us even having batted a thousand.”
The number of hospitalizations is decreasing and the number of new cases is on a downward trend, according to Murphy and Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli.
The number of COVID-19 related deaths in the state is near 10,000 at 9,946. More than half of those deaths are from the state’s long-term care facilities. Senate Republicans are calling for the creation of a committee to study the administration’s response with a focus on the facilities.
The tragedy of long-term care will “haunt us for a long time,” Persichilli said.
“I’ll reach out to anyone that will help us determine what we should be doing going forward so that this never happens again,” Persichilli said. “Did they have adequate PPE? They did not. And neither did anyone else in New Jersey and in the United States. There was no stockpile of PPE nationally and there was no stockpile in the state.”
Attorney General Gurbir Grewal is also investigating what happened at the state’s long-term care facilities.
