Double Standards

In early November, as health officials warned of an impending COVID-19 spike, Austin Mayor Steve Adler hosted an outdoor wedding and reception with 20 guests for his daughter at a trendy hotel near downtown. The next morning, Adler and seven other wedding attendees boarded a private jet bound for Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where they vacationed for a week at a family timeshare. One night into the trip, Adler addressed Austin residents in a Facebook video: “We need to stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax. We are going to be looking really closely. … We may have to close things down if we are not careful.” In hosting the wedding and traveling internationally, Adler said he broke neither his own order or those established by Gov. Greg Abbott.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo issued an apology Tuesday morning after news reports of him celebrating Thanksgiving with his extended family, disregarding COVID-19 safety regulations. “I apologize for my decision to gather for Thanksgiving with my family, contrary to the rules,” Liccardo wrote on Twitter. In a statement, the mayor said he and his wife joined four other households for an outdoor dinner at his parents’ house in Saratoga for the holiday. “Eight of us representing five households sat around three distanced tables in our own family groups on the back patio, and we wore masks when not eating,” Liccardo wrote.

San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, is under fire after it was revealed that she attended a birthday party at the restaurant in Napa Valley, just one night after Governor Gavin Newsom did the same. Breed’s party of eight met at the famed restaurant on 7 November to celebrate the birthday of Gorretti Lo Lui, a local socialite whose husband, Lawrence Lui, is a major hotel developer, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. Dining indoors was allowed in Napa county at the time, the Chronicle reports, though statewide guidelines discouraged gatherings with members of more than three households. “Breed’s dinner at an opulent restaurant – amid an economic catastrophe that’s shuttered countless small businesses and stretched the lines at local food banks to new lengths – might not have technically ...[Read More]

The dinner event led to criticism that the governor is flouting the safety guidelines he has set for Californians. California’s COVID-19 safety guidelines limit the number of households at a private gathering, but do not explicitly impose those same rules on restaurant patrons. State guidelines updated in November allow private gatherings of no more than three households at a park or outdoor space. Rules for dining say restaurants should “limit the number of patrons at a single table to a household unit or patrons who have asked to be seated together,” without stating any limits on the number of households that can sit at a table. At the time, Napa County was in the state’s orange tier, which allows for indoor seating. An Oct. 3 post from the Twitter account for the governor, warned restau...[Read More]