As it happened: COVID-19 restrictions lifted across Sydney as retail, hospitality sectors welcome back vaccinated patrons

Thanks for being with us today as Sydney emerged from a marathon 106 days in lockdown.

I hope you’re enjoying a few more freedoms this evening with friends, family and loved ones.

Before we close the blog for the night, here’s a reminder of how the state’s first day with loosened restrictions played out.

• Shoppers queued at Kmart at midnight, barbers tried to fix homegrown haircuts ... and drivers fought to find an empty car space at shopping centres. Normal life is back.
• Friends have reunited in Sydney’s south-west, but businesses fear a slow recovery
• Masked, double-dosed and on a strict time limit, family and friends were relieved to be reunited with aged care residents on Monday after restrictions were eased across the state.

Masked, double-dosed and on a strict time limit, family and friends were relieved to be reunited with aged care residents on Monday after restrictions were eased across the state.

For many, it was their first in-person contact with loved ones for four months, after the facilities locked down with only limited exceptions for care and end-of-life visits.

Barbara Olliff, who wrote in a letter to this masthead six weeks ago she had “lost her sense of purpose”, and her daughter, Judy Christian, were reunited at Castle Hill’s Anglicare retirement village on Monday morning.

After appearing on the Herald’s front page on September 2 asking why she could not visit her mother, despite living well within a five-kilometrem radius, Ms Christian said it was reassuring to see the 97-year-old was “just the same as she ever was”.

“She hasn’t been well recently and I was afraid she would appear more frail but she looked as bright as ever,” the daughter said.

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Assyrian singer Gaggi Atoraya is something of a local celebrity - his friends jokingly call him the “Al Capone of Fairfield”.

But for the last 100 days he’s been “singing at home” alone, as his suburb became the epicentre of Sydney’s Delta outbreak.

He and his friends were finally reunited on Monday, laughing over tea and coffee at their local cafe on Fairfield’s shopping strip while chatting with their waiter and acquaintances who stopped by for a chat on the first day of Sydney’s reopening.

Dozens of older men congregated at tables along the street’s various cafes, grinning as they caught up with long-time friends out in the open: “I’ve missed you!” one enthusiastically told the waitress as she came over to take their order.

Mr Atoraya translated the mood among his group on Monday afternoon: “We’ve come back again together and we are happy, because we are all friends, we are together, we haven’t seen each other for a while. Now we are sitting together and talking together, it’s good.“

“We are happy,” another of his friends adds. “We can go to Europe and holiday. We are thankful to the government now things are free again.”

For the regulars at Vinnies in Coogee, the op shop is more than a place to snag a bargain. It’s a community.

Store manager Marissa Smith said she was excited to be reopening on Monday morning.

Many of her customers spend time in the shop reading and chatting. “It’s almost like a therapy for people who come in,” she said.

“They’ll stay and read a book and talk. It’s not just in and out. It’s a community.”

Coogee hairdresser Tony Boutsalis kept taking calls from his regular clients during the Sydney lockdown to schedule and reschedule their appointments from October 11. He also took the opportunity to renovate his salon on Coogee Bay Road.

“Every time [former NSW premier] Gladys [Berejiklian] announced a different day, we kept moving the appointments,” he said.

For the next fortnight, at least, he plans to open seven days and a few nights to fit in a long list of clients who have been waiting for more than three months to get their hair cut and regrowth coloured.

“We have been taking bookings all along, and we are trying to accommodate everybody as much as possible,” he said. “We are doing extra hours.”

One of his first clients through the door on Monday morning was Helen Appleton, who booked her appointment more than a month ago.