Jason Tripp has a distillery in the city that was once a surfer-friendly city in San Mateo County. Since mid-March, he has been selling vodka, gin and rum crafts, as well as commodities in high demand – hand sanitizers – to local storefront customers.

It all ended May 5, when the city police chief sent an email to Tripp asking him to turn it off.

Tripp has since vocally described himself as the victim of an arbitrary government fatwa, trying to tell his story to anyone who will listen. He sent a message about his situation to the Los Angeles Times tip line, and ABC San Francisco affiliation, KGO-TV, aired a story about his fate last week.

“Why is it okay to go to the store and buy alcohol but it’s not good to stay outside and buy from a shop window?” he said Wednesday, speaking from his shop.

The Tripp situation, and the situation of other Bay Area business owners, was not resolved on Wednesday when San Mateo and other Bay Area counties announced their intention to relax some orders in an effort to get closer to the country. Tripp is not sure whether the new order means he can reopen.

A regional spokesman did not help clarify the issue.

“I think we will delay answering specifically about the new order until it is announced later this week,” said Preston Merchant, a county spokesman.

In mid-March, seven Bay Area districts worked in unison to deliver the first and most stringent orders in the country, designed to protect the population from the rapidly spreading corona virus. Orders vary slightly from one region to another, the only material differences are geographical borders and names.

However, over the past few weeks, the uniformity has been stirred into a mixture of geographical interpretations, orders and enforcement decisions – from the district level to the city and even the block level.

For example, on April 27, Bay Area regional health officials announced together that they were extending home orders until the end of May.

However, it soon became clear that each health worker and regional advisor interpreted the orders and extensions differently.

For example, in Santa Clara District, officials decided residents could play tennis with direct household members. But across San Franciscoquito Creek which is narrow and now dry, residents in San Mateo County are banned.

“We spent hours discussing it, far more time than the value of the subject,” Dr. Scott Morrow, San Mateo County public health officer, in an email. “Although I have never considered tennis as a high-risk activity, the Bay Area Health Officers group decided to use a rubric that prohibits sports that share equipment. That means there is no tennis. “

Since then Morrow has lifted the restrictions, as long as certain thresholds are met (for example, only household members can play together, and singles from different households cannot share the ball).

Morrow also restricted San Mateo County residents from traveling more than 10 miles for recreation – a limit that is not imposed elsewhere. He said it was mostly to prevent people from flocking to the beach in numbers at risk, and to provide law enforcement with concrete metrics to enforce orders.

“The county seaside area is an attraction for tens of thousands of people, many who come from long distances,” said Morrow, who owns a beachfront home in Half Moon Bay. “Beaches can be a big problem with uncontrolled gatherings as we have seen in other regions of the state and country.”

Based on data from sheriff County San Mateo, at least 370 written warnings, 1,088 verbal warnings and 604 parking quotes were issued along the district coast between April 20 and May 3 for violations of orders to stay at the district house. Nothing was recorded between May 4 and May 11, the last period on the sheriff’s website.

May 5 email to Tripp from Pacifica Police Chief William Glasgo was not included in the warning.

Tripp Distillery is an award-winning craft refinery in a converted garage on the Palmetto Avenue alley.

In every way, it looks like the product of a 48-year-old man who found a way to turn a hobby into sustainable income – more as a “way of life” rather than setting an office for a future IPO.

Boxes and equipment were scattered, the floors were sticky, and recipe streaks and cocktail mixes filled the wall space.

On Wednesday morning, a little soaked after a “long night of quality control,” Tripp explained he had to lay off four part-time employees last week; its biggest buyers, including the San Jose Sharks NHL, have either closed or, in the case of restaurants, cannot sell their products at home and have therefore stopped buying.

And now he can’t sell from a storefront – a ban which he thinks is confusing and confusing, given that customers can enter a BevMo or Safeway store and buy alcohol from a shelf – he doesn’t have money to pay anyone.

He pointed to a tweet from the distillery in Half Moon Bay that was still operating – selling craft spirits and hand sanitizers to local customers.

Call to Half Moon Bay Distillery not returned. However, a message out of the company and its website shows that sales in the store continue.

Daniel Steidle, a spokesman for the Pacifica Police Department, confirmed that the city had interpreted regional orders to ban refineries and breweries from storefront sales – unless they included restaurants.