Rural California county hums back to life, defying order

ALTURAS, Calif. (AP) — At the Brass Rail, two neon signs were beaming “OPEN" Friday, as the town and county slowly hummed to life, the first to do so in California in defiance of Gov. Gavin Newsom's order to stay home.

About a dozen customers were in the bar of the Basque restaurant — the only portion open so far — eager to be back among friends and neighbors after a six-week shutdown mandated by the Democratic governor 300 miles (480 kilometres) south in Sacramento.

“It’s been a long haul. We’re a small community," said owner Jodie Larranga. “It’s not that we’ve been given permission, we’ve just had a belly full. People are fed up.”

Modoc County is a place that defies California stereotypes. It's where semi-trailers carrying logs from the nearby lumber mill pass on the highway and where seven in 10 voted for Donald Trump in 2016. And its residents are putting their faith in local officials, not the state.

“Tex would never say it’s OK to be out in public if he didn’t truly feel it in his heart," said Amber McCandles, 41, referring to Sheriff Tex Dowdy. He “has done a great job keeping us healthy. He shut the town down and kept us isolated, in quarantine, and kept us COVID-free.”

With no cases of coronavirus among 9,000 residents in the far northeastern part of the state and plenty of land to spread out on, county officials made the move to reopen Friday after what they said was careful planning and with stringent limits — businesses could only have half the patrons and customers must stay 6 feet (1.8 meters) apart.

Hair salons, churches, restaurants and the county’s only movie theater were also allowed to reopen.

Still, in a county so spread out that one supervisor said they were social distancing before it was even a thing, some...