These Placer County restaurants are suing Gov. Newsom. I’ll never eat at them again
I’ve celebrated birthdays and graduations at La Provence, Roseville’s chic upscale French restaurant. Their indoor and outdoor spaces are gorgeous, and the waitstaff has always been friendly and accommodating. The food is spectacular. But I won’t be dining there ever again.
La Provence is part of a group of Placer County restaurants banding together to sue Gov. Gavin Newsom and the State of California over COVID-19 restrictions. Other restaurants involved in the so-called Placer County Restaurant & Bar Coalition are Brick Yard Kitchen & Bar, House of Oliver, Randy Peters Catering, Primo Pizza, The Brass Tap, Infusion Taproom and Pete’s Restaurant & Brewhouse.
At least two of these restaurants, La Provence and House of Oliver, have been accused by the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control of allegedly violating COVID-19 restrictions.
According to the Placer coalition’s March 5 press conference, the group’s lawsuit alleges “violations of state and federal constitutional law, including due process, equal protection as well as uncompensated takings.” The group has also demanded — via their attorneys, Gary Kreep and Steven Bailey — that Newsom immediately terminate California’s state of emergency. Or, as was phrased at the press conference, “compel the governor to free citizens of California.”
Included in the mostly maskless group of attendees at the coalition’s press conference was Assemblyman Kevin Kiley, author of “Recall Newsom: The Case Against America’s Most Corrupt Governor,” and Rep. Tom McClintock, who infamously and idiotically compared COVID-19 restrictions to the Salem witch trials, the French Revolution and communist scares of the 1950s.
Newsom has, admittedly, bungled the state’s COVID response in some ways. Shutting down California early on in the pandemic and limiting indoor operations to only essential services saved lives. In the year since, however, Newsom has opened and closed the state, and lifted and mandated restrictions, seemingly without rhyme or reason.
“Dining out was banned, then it was allowed outside, then inside, then outside again, then banned again, then outside, then inside — with different opening and closing dates by county, of course,” wrote The Bee’s Benjy Egel and Kate Washington in their March 9 compilation of the area’s best restaurants.
This flip-flopping has undoubtedly been confusing and frustrating for restaurant owners, employees and their customers. Yet while the Placer coalition would have you believe Newsom has California under lock and key, the governor is once again hastily reopening the state despite the fact that both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have warned that rushed reopenings could prove fatal.
Newsom has already surrendered to the pressure to reopen. In light of this, it’s clear that this lawsuit is a political stunt, not a legitimate fight for rights. It’s simply a partisan weapon to promote the effort to recall Newsom. From this point forward, nothing Newsom does will be good enough for his opponents.
Take McClintock, for instance. Our District 4 congressman has been quick to blame Newsom for California’s unemployment rates and economic turmoil. Yet McClintock voted against the recently passed $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, which includes funds allocated toward state unemployment benefits.
Restaurants like House of Oliver have acted with a similar lack of self-awareness. They branded themselves Roseville’s most rebellious restaurant, a champion of personal rights and freedoms, but what they’ve really done is rebel against basic health and safety precautions instituted for the good of the community. If you’re a patron, you’re saying that you don’t care whether your neighbors live or die as long as you can mingle, drink and be merry during a global pandemic.
The coalition’s website uses this “hard fact” as support for their re-opening argument: “37 people below 70 have died in Placer County of COVID.” By acknowledging that COVID-19 is deadly, they appear to undermine their own point. Unless their actual point is to say that it makes no difference whether 37 more people die as long as they can offer indoor dining.
That’s why I’ll be boycotting these eight Placer County restaurants even after the pandemic is over. Their owners have let it be known that they value profit over lives, and that’s not something I can endorse with my business.
A temporary halt on indoor dining to slow the spread of a fatal disease is not an infringement on my constitutional rights. If you agree, put your money where your mouth is: Placer County’s Nixtaco, for example, has stuck to take-out service despite financial losses from social distancing regulations. According to The Bee’s food reporters, it’s one of the 50 best restaurants in the region.