Southern California Pushes Back

Per the Desert Sun,

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco has issued a video statement decrying Gov. Gavin Newsom's plans to impose shutdowns across the state due to surging COVID-19 cases, and repeating his objection to penalizing those who don't follow the new protocols.

Bianco said his department won't be "blackmailed, bullied or used as muscle against Riverside County residents in the enforcement of the governor's orders."

The video, which was published on the department's YouTube channel and shared through its social media, shows Bianco in uniform. He accuses Newsom of having a "dictatorial attitude" and being "extremely hypocritical."

Bianco called the stay-at-home orders "flat-out ridiculous."

Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva "will not instruct his deputies to enforce a new statewide stay-at-home order announced Thursday that could force businesses to temporarily shut down as coronavirus cases continue to soar."

"I want to stay away from business [sic] that are trying to comply, they bent over backwards to modify their operations to conform to these orders and then they have the rug yanked out from under them, that's a disservice, I don't want to make them more miserable," he told Fox affiliate, KTTV-TV, according to a tweet.

The Orange County Sheriff restated his existing policy on lockdown enforcement:

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes said Saturday that his deputies would not be enforcing the regional stay-at-home order that has been issued for Southern California.

"Compliance with health orders is a matter of personal responsibility and not a matter of law enforcement,'' Barnes said in a statement. "The Orange County Sheriff's Department will remain consistent in our approach.

"Orange County Sheriff's deputies will not be dispatched to, or respond to, calls for service to enforce compliance with face coverings, social gatherings, or stay-at-home orders only."

The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office has announced it will not enforce the lockdown orders:

The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is aware of the state’s plan to modify the Stay At Home Order depending on the fluctuation of ICU bed availability/capacity in our region. We will continue to work closely with our county and city partners to best serve our communities. As has been the case since we were initially faced with the difficulties of living and working through this pandemic together, our goal is to educate and gain voluntary compliance regarding Public Health orders.

Sheriffs elsewhere in the state have taken similar positions, although many are simply restating positions they've had for much of the year.

A video from a Los Angeles restaurant owner went viral over the weekend:

Angela Marsden, the owner of Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill, posted a video on social media after she saw production tents and tables set up in a parking lot just a few feet from the outdoor dining area she's not allowed to use.

People involved in the television production crew were seen dining under the tents.

A basic problem with the lockdown orders is that state and local leadership shows by its own behavior that they don't believe the restrictions are necessary. If Newsom believed either indoor or outdoor dining were dangerous, he wouldn't have attended the pre-Thankstiving party at a Napa restaurant, without a mask. If Mayor Garcetti believed outdoor dining was dangerous, he wouldn't have allowed a TV production company to have catering, after he'd banned it for the plebs. Nor, of course, would the TV producers have eaten there.

What we're looking at is failing leadership, with key players, such as local sheriffs, no longer on board with policies, while the leaders, insisting that the continuing violations of their own orders are just isolated mistakes, simply continue an established pattern of hypocrisy.

Instead, over the past weeks, the state, county, and city authorities have issued panicked updates to their restrictions every few days, resulting in conflicts, misunderstandings, and absurdly unenforceable edicts. The mayor's latest ukase reads in part:

All travel, including, without limitation, travel on foot, bicycle, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, or public transit is prohibited, subject to the exceptions in Paragraph V.

Observation over the past few days indicates that nobody is taking this seriously; people are going on with their lives. This is simplly not leadership as it is generally understood.