Small/local spending in a small number of places is better than no spending. If there is one thing we do well it is supporting local businesses even when we are collectively on our butts.
I agree any little bit helps and we will support local businesses. But I think a lot of small local shops can probably operate under the current guidelines that say they can operate as long as there are no more than 10 people in the business. That doesn't apply to restaurants but it does apply to non-essential retail. I think the problem is that nobody really knows who is open and people don't want to go out and some of those businesses don't want to open for fear that their operating costs will be higher than what they can take in on limited sales. That and I think a lot of businesses don't understand the rules.
Probably part of what needs to be done is that someone needs to put together a list of local businesses that are operating within the restrictions and put together some kind of campaign about it being more important than ever to support local businesses. Ideally that would be the City doing it, but I think we will have to rely on a group like GNO, Inc., Gambit, or Nola.com to do it.