LONG BEACH, California – Vivian Hurtado and Mica Randall tried to stay out of it.
It had been two months since Los Angeles County banned meals on the spot to stop a record wave of coronavirus hospitalizations. But the couple – Hurtado, a veterinarian’s assistant, Randall, an entrepreneur – knew that the trendy restaurant behind their apartment continued to host guests on the back terrace anyway. They believed that the Restoration was only doing what it was supposed to do.
Dana Tanner, the charming and on-site owner, has consistently said that keeping the yard open is a matter of survival for her workers. But like so many coronavirus fighters in the past year, she seemed to embrace the notoriety that comes with defying public health orders amid a pandemic. Before New Year’s Eve, when Los Angeles County’s intensive care capacity was at 0 percent, Restauration promoted a personal dinner on its terrace – and then doubled down when asked by a local news organization.
Long Beach’s health department ordered the restaurant to close a week later for violating the coronavirus rules. Not long after, Tanner invited restaurant owners and journalists back to her yard for a meeting in which she urged others to follow her example. “It’s wrong to be closed and discriminated against,” Tanner told other business owners in an interview with The Daily Beast.
Finally, on January 23, city utility workers showed up in the middle of Saturday’s brunch and turned off the restaurant’s gas. But if it was a genuine attempt to put an end to Tanner’s whims, it was not a success, but it triggered an increasingly bizarre chain of events that shows how California companies write their own public safety rules in during the COVID-19 crisis.
That Saturday night, Hurtado and Randall – unaware that Restauration had run out of gas earlier that day – were watching TV at home, they remembered. They could hear some kind of work being done outside the living room window, which happens to be located above the gas meters for their building. Then, all of a sudden, they heard a loud, loud noise, like the sound of gas coming out of a pipe, they told The Daily Beast in separate interviews.
An overwhelming smell of gas filled their apartment, and Hurtado sent Randall outside to see what was happening, they said.
There, Randall met Tanner and an unidentified man. “Oh, it’s just me, Dana,” Randall remembered. “He almost has a lid.”
Randall realized it was just routine maintenance and reported it to his wife. They tried to ventilate the apartment.
Only the next day did they check the news and realize that the Restauration utility service had been shut down.
Tanner is now facing misdemeanor charges for an unauthorized gas line that city workers found on the property the next day, when gas workers, police and firefighters appeared after receiving reports of a suspected leak. Tanner is accused of manipulating the gas lines, allowing the construction of an illegal gas line and operating a restaurant without the necessary health permit, in addition to the fees he has for serving customers on the terrace. She has not pleaded yet, but a criminal lawyer handling the case will attend the hearing on her behalf on Feb. 19, she said in an interview.
“The handling of the gas pipeline significantly raised this case. It was something that endangered the health and safety of the neighbors and we felt we had no choice but to take action, “Long Beach City Attorney Doug Haubert said in an email.
Tanner denies manipulating the gas pipeline, suggesting that someone installed the new one without her knowledge. Pressed for more details about what happened that night, Tanner said she was just showing a friend what the city had done. The friend then began “playing with” the gas pipeline, Tanner said.
“I was saying, ‘Yeah, let’s not do that.’ And then I walked away from him, “Tanner told The Daily Beast.
“That gas line has been opened,” she admitted. “I did not do this. I was saying, “No, it’s not good.” ”
The friend hung up, Tanner said, and they both went home. She blamed an unidentified third party for the subsequent installation of a line connecting another gas tenant’s gas meter to her business without her knowledge.
“Did I go out there and look at what the city had done?” Absolute. It was my gas and they took it illegally. I was livid about it, “Tanner said. “But did I change it?” Not. And it was changed that night? Absolutely not. “
“I went back there with a police officer,” she added. “I personally didn’t smell the gas either.”
As for keeping the yard open while the coronavirus grows, Tanner has been far from alone when it comes to pandemic resistance nationally, and especially in Southern California. The region hosted anti-masquerade flash mobs robbing malls, a Christian rock singer and an anti-mask unleashing their fans on the skid line, with Kirk Cameron leading a group of anti-mask and anti-carolers. -vaxxers who close an inoculation site on Dodger Stadium. A restaurant owner near Huntington Beach went viral late last year because it banned customers or employees from wearing masks, saying they were “a symbol of control and surrender.”
Commercial business groups have campaigned against COVID rules in the state. The California Restaurant Association claimed that less than 5% of cases came from tables and more than a dozen restaurants sued Governor Gavin Newsom for restrictions.
But Tanner is abandoning a remarkably long campaign of defiance that has upset local authorities.
On Thursday afternoon, Restauration was open for business, despite no longer having a health permit – or gas. There are currently 36 people in the yard and it is full most nights, according to Lucas Meyer, who works there as a server. Several couples left or waited to be seated during a 20-minute visit by The Daily Beast. A sign in the backyard warned anyone in the “government or police” that he was not welcome. The staff cooked and cleaned with a flat electric grill, an electric fryer and an electric water heater.
“Many of these places that were closed will never come back from it. But I can still make money and support myself. So I’m very appreciative of that, “said Meyer.
For her part, Tanner insists she is not an anti-disguise denier or a pandemic denier in herself – even though the city prosecutor claimed the authorities found no application of the masks or social distancing when they cited the restaurant last month for its unusual restaurant. Tanner said he kept the yard open at a reduced capacity – previously home to 85 people – according to LA County’s earlier pandemic guidelines.
Her rhetoric sometimes creeps into negative territory.
“The danger, the livelihoods of our residents, for me, has a higher mortality rate than this virus does and who it affects,” she said of the pandemic’s restrictions. “And I’m not saying it’s not real, but what about these young people in their twenties, my children and the other businesses in the block?”
Last year, Tanner received a $ 71,600 PPP loan under the CARES Act, as reported by the Long Beach Post. She said the money covered only what the restaurant lost in the first three months of the pandemic, when they agreed to go only for food, according to previous guidelines. But its ongoing legal battle could pose its own financial challenge: Tanner currently faces 21 counts of fines and fines of up to $ 52,000.
Earlier this month, she filed a petition against Long Beach and her health department, claiming that her gas had been shut down illegally, that there was no “reliable data” linking the spread of COVID-19 to the restaurant and asking her. health permit. to be returned. She filed the petition with the help of a civil lawyer and refused to say how much she paid for her services.
She acknowledged that the legal battle could be more expensive than going to pay. “It could be. But it’s the principle of the problem,” she said.
It is true that there is limited data on the dangers of outdoor dining, but the absence of data does not mean that it is safe. “When you go to a restaurant, you tend to be in the immediate vicinity of people you’ve never been close to and that tends to be for longer periods of time,” two factors that could easily spread the infection, said Dr. Timothy Brewer, an epidemiologist at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.
Outdoor dining is again allowed in LA County after Governor Newsom lifted restrictions at the end of last month. Of course, the Restoration never stopped. This is not lost on the local authorities, but they seem to be at a loss as to how they can respond to Tanner.
“It was a bit unusual that once the gas stopped, the business would continue to operate,” Art Sanchez’s deputy prosecutor said in an interview, adding that inspectors could not enter because Tanner denied them. the ability to enter and inspect. “(” We were summoned then, “she replied in a text message.” Since the mandate was lifted, I have not allowed access. “)
Sanchez noted that a civil warrant to force an inspection was still a possibility – but also that Tanner could have his health permit returned if the civil trial was successful. The city also warned Restauration owners that they could eventually be held accountable.
“It’s a unique situation, but we do everything we can within these types of parameters,” Sanchez said.
Hurtado, a neighbor who lives in the apartment next door, said she initially did not complain that Restauration left the yard open because of the plight of many small business owners. But after the gas incident, she is no longer silent. .
“It really crossed the line,” Hurtado said. “I just can’t say that when he involved some innocent spectators who didn’t really have anything to do with it.”