San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond is pushing for fans to be allowed at Petco Park for baseball season.
Desmond sent a letter to Governor Gavin Newsom's office asking him to allow for limited attendance by opening day for the San Diego Padres on April 1, reports NBC7.
"Many other cities and teams have changed the way they operate to keep their fans safe, by limiting areas where they can congregate and making masks mandatory," Desmond wrote in the letter. "I'm confident the San Diego Padres organization will do the same. Allowing fans back into Petco Park will bring back thousands of jobs, which have been put on hold and help the businesses in the surrounding area that have been decimated over the last year."
Desmond is citing recent studies that evaluate the impact of having fans in stadiums for NFL and college football games. They suggest that limited in-person attendance at games does not cause a significant increase in COVID-19 cases.
"We both want to protect our community and keep people safe and we both know the mental health impacts the past 11 months have had on Californians," he said. "Allowing a small number of San Diegans to attend Padres games would be a major step in getting back to normal. I know you want to make decisions based on science and the science is clear that, when done safely, fans should be allowed to attend games."
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