LONG BEACH, California – Vivian Hurtado and Mica Randall tried to stay out.
Two months have passed since Los Angeles County banned on-site dining to halt the record increase in hospitalizations for coronavirus. But the couple – Hurtado, a veterinarian’s assistant, Randall, a contractor – knew that the trendy restaurant just behind their apartment was still welcoming customers in the backyard anyway. They imagined that the Restoration was just doing what it had to do.
Dana Tanner, the owner of the place with outside charm, has always said that keeping her yard open is a matter of survival for her workers. But, like so many coronavirus bandits last year, she also seemed to embrace the notoriety that accompanies public health orders in the midst of a pandemic. Before New Year’s Eve, when the capacity of the Los Angeles County ICU was at 0 percent, Restauration announced a dinner in person on its patio – and then doubled when a local news agency asked about it.
The health department of the city of Long Beach ordered the restaurant to close a week later for violating coronavirus rules. Not long after, Tanner invited restaurant owners and journalists to return to their patio for a meeting at which she urged others to follow her example. “It is wrong for us to be closed and discriminated against,” Tanner told other business owners in an interview with The Daily Beast.
Finally, on January 23, city officials appeared in the middle of Saturday’s brunch and turned off the gas in the restaurant. But if it was a genuine attempt to end Tanner’s antics, it was unsuccessful, instead it set off an increasingly bizarre chain of events that shows how companies in California are writing their own public safety rules during COVID -19 crisis.
That Saturday night, Hurtado and Randall – unaware that the Restoration had run out of steam earlier in the day – were watching TV at home, they remembered. They could hear some kind of work being done outside the living room window, which happened to be above the building’s gas meters. Then, suddenly, they heard a shrill and shrill noise, like the sound of gas escaping from a pipe, they told the Daily Beast in separate interviews.
An unbearable smell of gas filled his apartment, and Hurtado sent Randall out to see what was going on, they said.
There, Randall found Tanner and an unidentified man. “Oh, it’s just me, Dana,” Randall recalled what she said. “He’s almost done.”
Randall realized it was just routine maintenance and reported it to his wife. They tried to air the apartment.
It was not until the following day that they checked the news and realized that the Restoration utility service had been closed.
Tanner now faces misdemeanor charges over an unauthorized gas pipe that city officials found on the property the next day, when gas workers, the police and the fire department appeared after receiving reports of a possible leak. Tanner is accused of tampering with gas pipes, allowing the construction of a pipeline without permission and the operation of a restaurant without the necessary health authorization, in addition to the charges he faces for serving customers in the courtyard. She has not yet appealed, but a criminal lawyer in charge of the case will appear on the charges on her behalf on February 19, she said in an interview.
“The adulteration of the gas line has significantly raised this case. It was putting the health and safety of the neighbors at risk and we felt there was no choice but to act, ”said Long Beach city attorney Doug Haubert in an email.
Tanner denies that she tampered with the gas pipe, suggesting that someone installed the new one without her knowledge. Pressed for more details about what happened that night, Tanner said he was just showing a friend what the city had done. The friend then started “playing” with the gas pipe, Tanner said.
“I was like, ‘Yes, we’re not going to do that.’ And then I walked away from that, ”Tanner told The Daily Beast.
“That gas line has been opened,” she acknowledged. “I did not do it. I was like, ‘No, it’s not okay.’ “
The friend then closed the line, Tanner said, and the two went home. She blamed an unidentified third party for later installing a line connecting another tenant’s gas meter to her company without their knowledge.
“Did I go there to see what the city had done? Absolutely. It was my gas and they caught it illegally. I was furious about it, ”said Tanner. “But did I change? No. And was it changed that night? Absolutely not.”
“I went back there with a policeman,” she added. “And I personally didn’t smell gas.”
As for keeping his yard open during the coronavirus surge, Tanner was far from unique in terms of pandemic resistance nationwide – and in Southern California in particular. The region was once the scene of anti-masker flash mobs ransacking malls, a Christian rock singer and anti-masker releasing his fans in skid row, Kirk Cameron leading a group of anti-mask and anti-xxx carers closing a local inoculation in the Dodger Stadium. A restaurant owner in nearby Huntington Beach went viral last year for banning any customer or employee from wearing masks, arguing that they are “a symbol of control and surrender”.
Corporate business groups have launched their own campaigns against COVID rules in the state. The California Restaurant Association said that less than 5% of cases originate from dining out, and more than a dozen restaurants have sued Governor Gavin Newsom for restrictions.
But Tanner stands out for a remarkably long challenge campaign that has upset local officials.
On Thursday afternoon, the Restoration opened, despite having no health license – or gas. The courtyard currently seats 36 people and is crowded 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 to The Daily Beast. A sign in the backyard warned anyone in the “government or police” that they were not welcome. The team cooked and cleaned with a flat top electric grill, an electric fryer and an electric water heater.
“Many of those places that have been closed will never come back. But I still manage to make money and support myself. I am very grateful for that, ”said Meyer.
For his part, Tanner insists that she is not an ant masker or denier of the pandemic per se – even when the city attorney claimed that the authorities found no masking or social detachment when they cited the restaurant last month during their dinner at dishonest patio. Tanner said he kept the courtyard open with reduced capacity – which previously accommodated 85 people – according to guidelines set by LA County at the start of the pandemic.
His rhetoric sometimes creeps into denial territory.
“The danger, the livelihood of our residents, for me, has a higher death rate than the virus and who it is affecting,” she said of the restrictions on the pandemic. “And I’m not saying it’s not real, but what about these young people in their twenties, and my children and other businesses in the neighborhood?”
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 missed in the first three months of the pandemic, when they agreed to go only for the trip according to previous guidelines. But his ongoing legal battle may pose his own financial challenge: Tanner currently faces 21 misdemeanor charges and up to $ 52,000 in fines.
Earlier this month, she filed a petition against Long Beach and her health department, claiming that her gas was illegally turned off, that there is no “reliable data” linking the spread of COVID-19 to restaurants and asking for her health license to be returned. She filed the petition with the help of a civil lawyer and refused to say how much she was paying for her services.
She acknowledged that the legal fight could end up being more expensive than just going out. “It could be. But it is the principle of the matter,” she said.
It is true that data on the dangers of outdoor dining are limited, but the absence of data does not mean that it is safe. “When you go to a restaurant, you tend to be very close to people you’ve never been close to, and that tends to be for long periods of time,” two factors that can easily spread the infection, noted Dr. Timothy Brewer, a epidemiologist at the School of Public Health UCLA Fielding.
Outdoor dining is again permitted in LA County after Governor Newsom eased restrictions late last month. Of course, the Restoration was never closed in the first place. This fact is not overlooked by local authorities, but they do not seem to know how to hold Tanner accountable.
“It was a little unusual that once the gas was turned off, the business would continue to operate,” said city attorney Art Sanchez in an interview, adding that inspectors were unable to enter because Tanner “has been denying them the ability to enter and inspect. “(” That’s when we were being cited, “she replied in a text message.” Since the order was suspended, I have not allowed access. “)
Sanchez noted that a civil warrant to enforce an inspection was still a possibility – but also that Tanner could have his health license returned if his civil suit was successful. The city also warned Restoration owners that they could be held responsible.
“It is a unique situation, but we are doing what we can under these types of parameters,” said Sanchez.
Hurtado, the neighbor who lives in the apartment next door, said she initially did not complain about Restauration leaving her yard open because of the difficult situation that many small business owners find themselves in. But after the gas incident, she is no longer silent.
“She really crossed the line,” said Hurtado. “I just can’t take it anymore when it involved us innocent viewers who really had nothing to do with it.”