The mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, a far-left Democrat, offered a tone-deaf response to a local business owner after she called out the double standard when it comes to the stringent lockdown measures he is implementing unilaterally.
Under Garcetti and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s current lockdown edicts, outdoor dining is banned. Well, at least for small business owners like Angela Marsden, who runs the Pineapple Hill Grill and Saloon in Sherman Oaks.
Marsden posted a video Friday, revealing a TV production crew just feet away from her restaurant — which had been outfitted with outdoor-dining furniture and a large tent — had set up sprawling outdoor dining area, approved by Garcetti’s administration because he has deemed entertainment industry workers essential.
“I’m losing everything,” said Marsden, nearly in tears. “Everything I own is being taken away from me and they set up a movie company right next door to my outdoor patio, which is right over here. And people wonder why I’m protesting and why I have had enough.”
“This is dangerous,” she continued. “Mayor Garcetti and Gavin Newsom [are] responsible for every single person that doesn’t have unemployment, that does not have a job, and all the businesses that are going under.”
Newsom has shutdown all outdoor dining amid a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases. And Garcetti said last week it’s “time to cancel everything” as he implemented a sweeping dictate prohibiting “all travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit.”
He also ordered all businesses to close, telling Los Angeles residents his edicts “couldn’t be simpler.”
The impact of Garcetti and Newsom’s mandates have been “devastating,” Marsden told The New York Times, noting her employees “can’t pay their rent, they have to tell their kids they don’t have a job or money for Christmas.”
While Garcetti claimed to sympathize with the restaurant owner’s situation, he made it clear he isn’t planning on changing anything because what he’s done is “necessary.”
“My heart goes out to Ms. Marsden and the workers at the Pineapple Hill Saloon who have to comply with state and county public health restrictions that close outdoor dining,” he said.
The mayor continued: “No one likes these restrictions, but I do support them as our hospital ICU beds fill to capacity and cases have increased by 500%. We must stop this virus before it kills thousands of more Angelenos.”
L.A. County Superior Court Judge James Chalfant has ordered public health officials to give him scientific evidence proving the efficacy of banning outdoor dining.