After COVID-19 fight, renegade California bistro gets evicted — but not over the pandemic

The Apple Bistro restaurant in Placerville has famously spent more than a year fighting state and county officials over its refusal to enforce COVID-19 safety rules, racking up well over $1 million in fines.

Ultimately it was an issue over a water-well permit that humbled the restaurant’s defiant owner.

The highly visible restaurant located just off Highway 50 was evicted Thursday morning by El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies, said county spokeswoman Carla Hass.

County officials suspended Apple Bistro’s permit. Last month they secured a court order requiring the restaurant to close. Apple Bistro paid a $2,400 fine and submitted an application for a new permit. The county turned it down because the restaurant didn’t have a permit for the well it was using for its water supply, Hass said.

At that point the restaurant’s landlord arranged to have the eatery evicted, she said. She didn’t have the identity of the landlord.

“We conducted a lawful eviction pursuant to a court order that was related to a landlord-tenant issue,” said Sgt. Eric Palmberg, a sheriff’s office spokesman. He declined further comment.

A call to Apple Bistro Thursday afternoon was met with a brief recorded message saying that, as of March 7, it had paid for its county permit. “So, we are just waiting on them, but we are open 5 to 5 Monday through Friday. Come join us. Have a fabulous day.” The mailbox was full and could not accept new messages.

There was no talk of eviction on the restaurant’s Facebook page Thursday afternoon, though there was a request for financial help.

“Many of you have asked how you can donate to help the Apple Bistro and our fight,” the post says. “Well here it is, follow the link below and join us as we fight back.”

The link directs to a fundraising website. The goal amount: $900,000.

No donations were listed as of 3 p.m. Thursday.

Thirty miles east of Sacramento, the eatery had become well-known during the pandemic — less for its baked goods and Eggs Benedict and more for owner Jennette Waldow’s defiance against authorities attempting to enforce COVID-19 safety rules.

Despite pulled permits, court orders and large fines, the restaurant with sweeping views of the El Dorado County foothills continued to serve customers. Increasingly, the bistro and its owner had become a cause du jour for conservatives furious about pandemic-era rules and the fines that came with them.

In rebuffing local and state officials — and refusing to pay fines north of $1 million — Apple Bistro had railed against a government that, early in the pandemic, supplied financial help to the restaurant.

In September 2020, seven months after the first rounds of public health precautions went into place and stay-at-home orders obliterated local economies, El Dorado County awarded Apple Bistro restaurant $22,736 in relief aid under the federal CARES Act.

A month after the county delivered COVID relief money, Cal-OSHA hit the restaurant with a $108,000 fine for failing to protect workers, not requiring masks and not installing acrylic screens at cash registers and between tables to prevent the spread of COVID.

Around that time, Apple Bistro plastered signs in the restaurant mocking and disparaging mask-wearing and the state’s enforcement actions. “As free Americans we will not comply with unconstitutional medical or political mandates that violate our basic rights,” one sign said.

Officials weren’t amused. Months later, Cal-OSHA tossed in a pair of $675,000 penalties for failing to abate the problems. The total fine of nearly $1.46 million remains the agency’s largest COVID citation against any employer.

Cal-OSHA levied scores of big fines in the first year of the pandemic. Inspectors fined hospitals for failing to provide adequate safety equipment and hit meat processing facilities that were ground zero for major outbreaks. The workplace safety agency went after California’s own prisons, which seeded deadly outbreaks, the inspectors said, in part because of their failure to follow basic safety measures.

Yet a Sacramento Bee investigation published Thursday found that, even two full years into the pandemic, many of those employers have yet to pay. In some cases, problems remain unabated altogether, records show.

The drawn-out appeals are part of a widespread public and private-sector pushback against Cal-OSHA’s COVID-19 penalties. The increase in appeals has sent the state’s workplace safety group on a hiring spree to try to keep up and has left critics fearing the state is going soft on companies that ran afoul of pandemic rules and simply factor legal fights into their bottom line.

The Bee analyzed the cases of 110 employers fined at least $10,000 in the first 12 months of the pandemic. Of those, only 41 have paid anything, and their payments amount to just $469,468. That’s less than half of the combined $1,144,565 they were fined.

Some employers who faced tens of thousands of dollars in fines settled their penalties for only a few hundred.

Meanwhile, El Dorado County pulled the restaurant’s permit for failing to require employees to wear masks, among other violations. Then, when the restaurant continued operating, the county issued a cease-and-desist notice. The owners didn’t respond, so the county and the state sued the restaurant in November.

The case was among the most visible glimpses into the limits of enforcing COVID-19 safety rules.

Last month, a Superior Court judge ordered the restaurant closed until it gets a new permit. The restaurant refused to comply and vowed to keep fighting.

Months ago the restaurant strung a banner, visible from Highway 50, declaring, “No Mask Allowed FOR EVERYONE’S HEALTH AND SAFETY.” On the door to the restaurant, a bumper sticker from the far-right website InfoWars said: “The media is the virus.”

Waldow couldn’t be reached for comment. But she has accused Cal-OSHA of “trespassing on our rights,” in a video she created for the restaurant’s website. The video is under a link that’s labeled “Say no to tyranny.”

And say no Waldow did — until November.

Cal-OSHA records show the bistro paid about $13,000 of its fines.

Cal-OSHA says the restaurant owes the state more than $1.3 million.

This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 3:27 PM.