In-N-Out’s COVID denial gives Californians one more reason to stop eating cheeseburgers

Being, like In-N-Out, a native Southern Californian, I never questioned the unconventional presentation of the grease-infused biblical citation at the bottom of the chain’s french fry receptacles. For the uninitiated, it’s Proverbs 24:16: “For a just man falleth seven times, and riseth up again: but the wicked shall fall into mischief.”

“Lean not unto thine own understanding,” another food-borne proverb advises. And indeed the only question I ever had about In-N-Out’s sacred cheeseburger was whether to wash it down with a Coke or a milkshake.

If, however, you’ve been looking for a reason to stop eating this stuff your whole life, In-N-Out has provided one. No longer content to mutter its articles of faith under cover of potatoes and soda in exchange for nearly a billion dollars in annual sales, the chain has decided its beliefs supersede the policies of the democratically elected governments of California.

Unlike the chapters and verses adorning the company’s wrappers and containers, the outlandish belief in question — namely, that reasonable public health precautions are “intrusive, improper and offensive” to anyone’s legal or natural rights — is found nowhere in any sacred text, biblical or receptacle. And yet In-N-Out’s defiance of vaccination mandates has now led to the closure of half a dozen Northern California locations to indoor eating — not that the fluorescent ambience of its “dining rooms” has ever been a cornerstone of the experience.

An executive explained that the company could not abide by rules forcing it to “become the vaccination police for any government.” But In-N-Out’s practice of making people pay for their burgers, for example, doesn’t force it to become the “thievery police”; it just reflects the reality and benefits of operating within a society of laws.

Given an opportunity to take a position on all of this, Gov. Gavin Newsom sounded like a man who would be paralyzed even by the choices on In-N-Out’s famously limited menu.

“I encourage everyone to take seriously local health orders,” he said, “and I encourage everybody to support businesses that support this state.”

This is, of course, exactly backward. Millions of people may elect to order a Double-Double Animal Style from In-N-Out, but no one elected In-N-Out. Meanwhile, the duly elected governor is demonstrating the sort of leadership that empowers burger joints and just about everyone else to take a shot at making policy in his stead.

For that and other reasons, it’s not as easy as it should be to forsake In-N-Out. Besides being all but invited by the governor to substitute its judgment for that of public officials, the company does run a better-than-average fast food chain. It pays and treats its employees better than most. It tastes better. And like another beloved California company, Trader Joe’s, it serves up its junk food with a veneer of health-conscious wholesomeness, making much of the quality and freshness of its ingredients.

It’s no wonder In-N-Out managed for so long to straddle the political and cultural divides that force most institutions, corporations and individuals to choose one side or the other. Here is a perfectly Californian combination of self-indulgence and virtue-signaling, loved by Bay Area liberals and Kern County conservatives alike.

To conclude that In-N-Out’s hallowed reputation is threatened by this descent into wicked mischief, you don’t have to lean on thine own understanding. You just have to read the fries.

This story was originally published November 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.