„Are you going to pay my rent?“
Via the Daily Caller, which happened to be on the scene interviewing business owner Anton Van Happen when two California health inspectors showed up. That sounds like an incredible coincidence but it isn’t. He’s been trying to organize a little commercial rebellion against the new regional stay-at-home order, which I assume is why the Caller — and the inspectors — wanted to talk to him. From a KEYT story published Friday: Most of Downtown Ventura is empty following the new regional Stay-At-Home order. Restaurants were ordered to switch to takeout and delivery only, but some owners are pushing back. “I am trying to start something where all restaurant owners are going to wake up,” said Anton Van Happen, who is the owner of Nick The Greek in Downtown Ventura. On Thursday Van Happen put up signs advertising a protest. “My calling is to all the other restaurant owners to open your restaurants,” said Van Happen. “If we all open up they can’t do anything.” “His outdoor patio was packed Thursday night,” KEYT notes. Someone in California’s health bureaucracy must have read or heard about it and dispatched agents to make an example of him. If you’re reading this and wondering, “Wait, why is *outdoor* dining dangerous?”, that’s… a good question. Other restaurant owners have been asking it, occasionally with great clamor ensuing online. Local health bureaucrats seem to think it’s a simple matter of zero tolerance at a moment when infections are peaking in California and hospital capacity is being strained. Outdoor dining may be low-risk but it’s not no-risk, so they’ve concluded that risk should be eliminated as a way to further limit community spread. The L.A. County director of public health, Barbara Ferrer, was asked to respond to Giroir’s comments Monday at a news conference. “The data is really crystal clear at every single level that you look at it: That wearing a mask is one of the best protections you have from preventing [coronavirus infections],” Ferrer said.
