Tourist-dependent Solvang struggles through coronavirus stay-home orders in California

SOLVANG, Calif. - With his wire-rim glasses, burly build and shock of alabaster hair tucked into a bike helmet, Chuck Stacy looked a little like Santa Claus on vacation as he pedaled through Solvang's quaint business district last week.

He was leisurely riding down the center of an empty street in this California tourist haven that would be clogged with traffic under normal circumstances.

But these aren't normal times.

With much of the country under stay-at-home orders to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus the Danish-settled village, whose windmills and half-timbered architecture draws more than 1 1/2 million visitors a year, is a virtual ghost town.

"I've never seen it like this," said Stacy, a retired Episcopal preacher who has spent 53 of his 72 years in Solvang.

A couple of blocks away Thomas Birkholm keeps his Danish bakery going by preparing takeout orders with a staff made up largely