San Francisco PostcardSeptember 13, 2021 Issue

Checkpoint Charlie, but for Panda Express

A commuter spends a day navigating bureaucracy and presenting papers in San Francisco, the first major American city to require full vaccination for indoor activities.

By Nathan HellerSeptember 6, 2021

　San Francisco has often been friendly to firstness—first cable car, first “be-in,” first whatever on earth was going on with Google Glass—so it wasn’t surprising that, late last month, it also became the first major American city to go strictly vaccinated-only, requiring proof for indoor restaurants, bars, clubs, gyms, theatres, and assemblies of a thousand people or more. The vigilance was motivated by the Delta variant. But it also offered a chance to give the stragglers a nudge. Although seventy-nine per cent of eligible locals were vaccinated by the time the requirement went into effect (a proportion that the mayor, London Breed, trumpeted as “amazing”), there remained holdouts, and, if they weren’t susceptible to the fear of death, well, maybe they would tremble at the thought of a dull night. The rule went into effect on a summer Friday, clearing a path for a new urban trend: New York will start enforcing a similar rule on September 13th.

　So what’s life like in a vaxxed-only city? Pretty well examined. The other day, a commuter arriving in San Francisco stopped for breakfast at Sam’s, a Korean-American diner by City Hall. Before he’d made it through the doorway, a waiter cut him off. “Do you have proof ?” he boomed. The commuter, feeling defensive and undercaffeinated, fumbled to produce his vaccination card, which looked like something a teen-ager forged to get out of math class and forgot about in his pants. The waiter nodded gravely: onward to the chilaquiles.

　For lunch, the commuter went for spicy tan tan noodles at the Z & Y Sichuan restaurant, in Chinatown. There, children were being stopped and questioned at the door. (“She’s twelve!” a desperate mother cried.) The commuter proffered his papers; the waitress glanced but didn’t look. It felt like dealing with the T.S.A. Nobody was detained. At Philz Coffee, after he spent several minutes struggling to find his card in the bowels of his bag, the cashier took her chances. “You know what, we close in fifteen minutes, and there’s no one here, so I’m just going to trust that you have it,” she said. But wait! A photograph of the card was located. The cashier stooped to inspect it, eyebrows knitted, lips in a perplexed frown: an expression he’d hoped never to see from someone studying his medical records. “O.K.,” she said at last. “Thanks?”

　Later: cannoli at Caffe Trieste, the old Beat-haunted hash house in North Beach. It was a nice day, and the outdoor tables were busy. Indoors? Not a soul. The woman on cannoli duty wanted not only his papers but his I.D. (perhaps he’d mugged a vaccinated tourist?), and, when he flashed a digital Excelsior Pass he’d picked up in New York, she turned him over, like a hot bombolone, to a younger employee running the espresso machine. “What the hell?” the man said, peering at the digital pass. “Where’d you get it? Does it have the dates on it?” He looked closer. “What the hell ?” The I.D. check never took place.

　At Stonestown, a shopping mall, the indoor tables were all gone, except for one cluster in the midst of the food court. (This seemed a common practice. In the upscale dining arcade of the Ferry Building, nearly any surface that could provoke a fit of indoor eating had been banished—abstinence training for the ceviche set.) The table cluster had been walled off with ribbons, and was guarded by a security professional at a plexiglass booth. Crossing over felt like passing through Checkpoint Charlie: access to a free world of frozen yogurt and Panda Express. Did the guard encounter a lot of undocumented diners?

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　“I do,” she said, leaning in conspiratorially. “But there’s a way around it—I help them.” This path involved still more bureaucracy. At a row of chairs nearby, massages were being sold—decadent appeasement for the people. No paperwork was needed to be touched.

　What about a movie? At one theatre, the answer was: Well, what about it? From purchasing a ticket for “Don’t Breathe 2” to taking a seat in the dark theatre, the only attestation required was that you were old enough to see an R-rated film. The seats were mostly empty, the multiplex risk perhaps being one that good sense solves itself. Don’t breathe, indeed.

　Time for a drink. At a dive out in the avenues, the commuter ordered a Lagunitas. There were no masks among the patrons; the barkeep scrutinized documents while pulling on the tap. “Some places aren’t asking at all. Some places you need your I.D. and your vax card,” she said. Had business changed? “Honestly, this is the first shift I have to ask for them,” she said. “But not really. Here? It’s mostly regulars.” ♦