Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf (D), has threatened at least 150 restaurants with fines for operating after the governor again shut down indoor dining last week.
Last week, Wolf announced a set of mitigation strategies to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus, which suspends indoor dining at “bars, restaurants, breweries, wineries, distilleries, social clubs, and private catered events” until January 4, 2021. The order also prohibits private gatherings of more than ten people, though it excludes places of worship. However, it urges churches, synagogues, and mosques to “find alternative methods.” Additionally, outdoor gatherings are capped at 50, and businesses are prohibited from operating beyond 50 percent capacity.
The order took place at 12:01 a.m. on December 12.
Dozens of restaurants have operated despite the Wolf administration’s order, with at least 150 receiving warnings from the state within the first three days of the order taking effect, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
While some business owners simply disagree with the restrictions — much like the restaurant workers in New York, who rallied this week in protest of the mandates and lack of aid from Congress — others simply refuse to lay off their workers during the holiday season.
“They’re worried about paying their rent or buying their children Christmas gifts,” Al’s Cafe owner Rod Ambrogi said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “So we made the decision and the restaurant employees want to stay open, so that’s what I’m doing. I’m standing up for what I believe is right.”
Such establishments operating outside of the governor’s edicts face “fines or temporary closure”:
State officials said they have sent warning letters to those that have not complied, threatening them with fines of up to $300 a day or closure until they agree to serve only takeout and outdoor dining. A Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture spokesperson also said inspectors will begin unannounced visits to noncompliant businesses.
Thomas Farley, the city’s health commissioner, appeared to defend the suspension of indoor dining across the Keystone State.
“What we in the Health Department have tried to do is limit the spread of the virus, limit the number of people who die from it, while having minimal impact to the economy,” Farley said, contending that restaurants “have been demonstrated through a number of studies to be very high-risk settings for spread.”
Indoor dining has also been suspended in New York City despite less than two percent of coronavirus cases being traced to restaurants.
Like other states, Pennsylvania is currently experiencing s surge of the virus, reporting 10,049 new cases on Wednesday despite Wolf’s statewide mask mandate.
The Pennsylvania Restaurant And Lodging Association is calling on the governor to reverse his order and allow restaurants to operate, asserting that restaurants are being unfairly targeted, as the spread of the virus is occurring primarily at small, private gatherings.
In a Wednesday op-ed for the Inquirer, Commonwealth Foundation Vice President Jennifer Stefano notes that “the perpetual threat — then abrupt enforcement — of so-called temporary restrictions has a destructive effect on small businesses and risks permanently damaging our state’s economy.”
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All restaurants, bars, any establishment in fact, that serves the public should refuse service – loudly – to all of the political scumbags and appointees diktating these measures.
The bigger and noisier the call-out the better: have the politician (and party) seated by the host or hostess/ maitre ‘d and then have the manager or owner tell the Communist fukwad they are not wanted and to leave the premises immediately.
“GTFO!”
You can’t kick them out, especially if they are anyone other than white males.
Publicly identifying them to all other diners AFTER identifying the vehicle they travel in.
Same with “health” inspectors who show up.
Doxxing works-both ways.
Interestingly this handful of Governors that are the most tyrannical. None seemed to be up for re-election this past Nov. Could this have been planed that way?
Wrong, Il Duce’ Cooper, D-NC, won.
That surprised me and said NC is no longer a red state refugee sanctuary.
NY/NJ has swallowed the entire eastern part of that state. Cary and many other cities could easily be in NJ. Sorry NC, your once beautiful state is on the fast track to vibrant blue state hellhole.
I’ve watched them chew up all of PA east of I-81 since the mid 80’s until there is very little of old PA left. It’s one giant, filthy, stripmall filling with vibrant non-english speaking inhabitants.
When an inspector comes in, get his full name, find out where he lives and organize a protest in front of his house. When he realizes the people know where he lives, he may decide it is time to cut back on enforcement. Same thing for AGW’s.
Use the tactics of the left to fight these bastards. They do not want to endanger their families any more than you do.
Smart play Patriot……no violence….call in a food truck and turn it into a party and stay for a while.
A milder version of Solzhenitsyn before it REALLY gets ugly. I LOVE IT!!! Combine it with some “Gone Galt.” Smart, talented, honest people that didn’t want to ‘run the world,’ but are the keys to the machine continuing to run.
The hardest part during this time is not being consumed with anger in the interim. Righteous indignation = Good. Unabashed anger is acidic and will consume you … An internal battle that I am currently fighting and have been waging war with since 2008 when I realized the shit-show that we were walking into!!! May God Bless us all.
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
It’s about control, not science. TBP knew that but even the normies are starting to wake up. If I were to guess about 1/3 are still open here but it’s like a speakeasy, no one is advertising that fact.
DeKulukization, Amerikan-Styled.
How is Wolf even a thing at this point?
This describes what is going on in THIS country. It is up to each of us to do whatever is necessary to make it stop. We don’t have much time left!
Let Tom Wolf live on 25% of his salary for a while. Might give him new perspective.
Ya see? Patriotic Penns are stuck with Wolf, NY’ers stuck with Cuomo, Californicators stuck with gruesome Newsome, and Jerseys stuck with Murphy are all just as screwed and pissed off as patriot ‘ganders who got stuck with Whitless. And we all were stuck with 8 years of OBungles, and are looking at 4 years of a nasty Kamal leading the caravan into a desert with no oasis in sight. Seize the small pleasures in life while you still can, monkeys.
It sounds like the governor may be removing the money they were going to use for lawyers in the bankruptcy pleadings.