Wine bar, salon and nail bar in Sacramento latest to sue over COVID-19 stay-at-home orders
Sacramento’s 58 Degrees & Holding Co., a hair salon and a nail bar are the latest businesses to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sacramento County officials over the stay-at-home order that they contend is misguided, racially harmful and needlessly throwing people out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The midtown wine bar and restaurant, along with Sparkle Nail Bar and Visage Salon, filed the suit late Monday in Sacramento federal court asking for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to halt the order.
“The lockdown orders are draconian, dictatorial, and fundamentally un-American,” the lawsuit says. “The shutdown orders disregard the science previously acknowledged and accepted by both the state and county.
“Making matters worse, the state and county orders have no defined end date.”
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal challenges filed by restaurants, gyms, churches and other entities over the state’s efforts to curb the spread of coronavirus since last March.
But this suit argues that the latest spike in COVID-19 cases comes not from patrons of their businesses but from Thanksgiving gatherings that have nothing to do with them.
“In the weeks leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, health experts and government officials throughout the country warned that large family gatherings could cause ‘super spreader’ events which might accelerate the spread of the virus, thereby challenging hospital capacity nationwide,” the businesses’ court filings say. “Just days after Thanksgiving, media outlets reported that millions of Americans disregarded federal and state advisories, and held large family gatherings for the holiday.
“Shortly thereafter, California and the nation saw an immediate and precipitous increase in COVID-19 cases.”
The suit, filed by the Sacramento law firm Gavrilov & Brooks, notes that Sacramento County’s outgoing public health director, Dr. Peter Beilenson, last month “publicly acknowledged in an interview with Capital Public Radio that data from contact tracing shows that ‘private gatherings and parties are more likely to cause outbreaks than restaurants and gyms in Sacramento County.’”
The lawsuit also notes that the latest regional shutdown order for the Sacramento area was triggered last week when the intensive care bed unit availability fell below 15%, despite Beilenson telling KCRA in an interview that such a shortage of beds is not that unusual.
“For example, during flu season we often get to 10% or 15% vacancy,” the suit quotes him as telling the station. “But what we’re trying to do is keep it from going over the line, if you will, until there is no beds available — in which case you have to make very difficult decisions.”
The suit says that forcing the businesses “to shut down operations for a minimum of three weeks due to a consistent, seasonal dip in ICU capacity due to the flu — in the midst of flu season — is not rationally related to furthering the legitimate governmental interest of curbing the spread of COVID-19.”
A Sacramento County spokeswoman declined comment on the suit Tuesday, and Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The state’s response to the pandemic has triggered numerous protests and spawned similar lawsuits statewide since March, with many suits falling short of overturning the shut-down orders and others pending.
A hearing was set for Tuesday in Sacramento federal court over a Lodi church’s lawsuit challenging Newsom’s order limiting indoor church services, an order some churches have openly defied.
And a judge in Los Angeles last week overturned that county’s ban on outdoor dining, although the state’s ban is still in effect.
The Sacramento lawsuit also notes that minority communities have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and calls the shutdown orders “the product of institutional racism.”
As evidence, the suit notes that government officials “have publicly referred to Asian business owners as ‘yellow people,’” an apparent reference to a comment Beilenson made in November during a Board of Supervisors meeting.
Beilenson, who apologized and said he meant no offense, later said he was resigning to return to Baltimore to attend to family matters.
“Sparkle, like the majority of nail salons in the United States and California, is a Vietnamese-owned business,” the lawsuit says. “A recent study by the University of California, Los Angeles, found that nearly 80% of all nail salons are owned by Vietnamese immigrants and those of Vietnamese (descent).”