Jose Mier on Unenforceable Guidelines
More COVID-inspired hilarity for us in Sun Valley. As you know from Jose Mier Sun Valley.org’s previous posts, I have my reservations about the extent to which our politicians have gone in response to the coronavirus. The latest set of rules or regulations to come out of Sacramento and Los Angeles include these for celebrating Thanksgiving (edited list):
Gatherings must be held outside and people can only go inside to use the bathroom. Indeed they are very specific about what “outdoor” means: “may occur in outdoor spaces that are covered by umbrellas, canopies, awnings, roofs, and other shade structures provided that at least three sides of the space (or 75%) are open to the outdoors.”
Gatherings must be limited to only 3 households and should be 2 hours or less.
My favorite: host has to keep names of everyone who is at the gathering for contact tracing purposes.
The rules include other shopworn warnings like wearing masks, etc. It just strikes me as nonsensical that someone in government actually took the time to put these regulations down on paper. It may be a case of someone justifying their job’s existence by issuing such rules. By now do our politicians not know that we understand we are in the midst of a pandemic? We all know the “rules” by now and some of us are willing to take the risk of being with loved ones during the holidays rather than sitting alone in our own homes.
In addition, are these rules enforceable? Will some law enforcement agency be checking every home in Sun Valley to make sure we’re abiding by these recommendations? And if not, what are the consequences?
All this would be comic if it were not so sad. On top of that our chief executive in the state, Gavin Newsom, who is the one urging Californians to follow the guidelines seems to have flouted his own restrictions by dining in a large group INDOORS at the French Laundry restaurant in Northern California. The effect of this is that it would seem our leaders really don’t believe in the rules they want the rest of us to follow.
I’d love to hear from my readers what you think. After Thanksgiving, let me know how you celebrated and if you adhered to any of the “rules” we are supposed to follow. Do so anonymously, of course.
