SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Restaurants are hanging by a thread due to pandemic restrictions and an Encinitas lawyer keeps them open with the help of the constitution.
“They are fighting for their survival,” said Curran & Curran Law partner Michael Curran.
Nearly 98,000 companies across the country closed permanently between March and September, according to Yelp.
“You know we were sitting on our couch,” Curran said as he and his wife tried to think of ways to help.[we were] researching the first amendment and wondering why restaurants can’t protest peacefully in the process of managing their restaurants? And the legal reason is that there is no reason not to. “
Curran said the constitution would protect their livelihoods, just as it protects anyone’s right to hold a sign during a protest.
“The highest law in the country is the constitution. It is in force and effective at any time, in an alleged pandemic and not,” he said.
This comes after Encinitas Mayor Catherine Blakespear said on Thursday that she would take street and sidewalk permits from restaurants that defy order.
She retained her position in a press release issued to ABC 10News on Friday, reading in part: county “.
On her website, she said the pandemic was a “serious health emergency – we all need to do better.” She cited an increase in the number of coronavirus cases in the past month as a cause for concern.
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria signed an executive order on Wednesday demanding accountability.
Gloria said she ordered the San Diego Police Department and asked the city prosecutor to continue fines and other enforcement actions against huge offenders and people who repeatedly violate health orders.
“Throughout human history, we have never closed for a pandemic,” said Mayor El Cajon, Dr. Bill Wells.
He was a supporter of the businesses that remain open through the pandemic, saying that the blockades do not work and that there is no “virus hiding”.
Dr. Wells said the future will face serious economic challenges, “I don’t think anyone has any understanding of what it will take to return to any normal appearance. I think it will be a multi-year process, probably a decade. “
He hopes the vaccines will change the tide and that we will all learn something from this.
“I hope that we, as a society, learn something from this and take a look at our laws so that no one in the guise of a crisis can take over an entire state like California, with 40 million people without responding and getting all their direction from public health officials who are completely unelected and who are concentrating very narrowly, ”he said.
Curran said his clients hope he doesn’t have to go to court, but are ready to fight if the need arises.