LA County Suspends Outdoor Dining, Crippling Already Struggling Restaurants

Brittany M. Hughes | November 23, 2020
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Not only are you at a much higher risk of getting the 'rona after 10 p.m. – especially if you’re drinking alcohol – now, it can even get you if you’re dining…outside.

That’s right. You used to be safe dining outside, and it was only indoors, sitting under a roof and crammed in with other non-mask-wearing people, that you were at risk of catching the COVID. But no longer. Now, you can also catch it spaced far apart in the wide open air, even after having walked to your seat clad in a face diaper.

Or at least, that’s what the government “experts” in Los Angeles have decided, as the county has now banned outdoor – that’s right, outdoor – dining to try and curb the rise in coronavirus cases. Because even though al fresco dining was once considered one of the safer activities one could engage in, now it’s…not. Or something.

According to this, LA County has put the kibosh on restaurants and bars serving patrons outdoors, kneecapping one of the paper-thin resources still keeping businesses going amid months of shutdowns and COVID health restrictions that have left countless businesses bankrupt and others hanging on by the slenderest of threads. This new rule, which goes into effect Wednesday at 10 p.m., restricts restaurants to take-out and delivery only.

Restaurant owners noted that while those services may be enough to keep some businesses afloat – maybe, and barely – it won’t help the servers, busboys, hosts and kitchen staff who’ll be laid off due to the lack of work. Given that Congress has yet to issue another national extension of federal unemployment benefits, the loss of income could leave thousands, if not more, in a lurch headed into the holiday season. 

The move is also interesting, given that “outdoor dining” is one of the excuses Gov. Gavin Newsom gave for why it was acceptable that he got caught violating his own COVID diktats by joining a large dinner party at a swanky restaurant to ring in his buddy’s 50th, saying that while he probably shouldn’t have gone, it wasn’t really a violation because it was held outdoors (side note: it wasn’t really, but details).

Fortunately for Newsom, the French Laundry isn’t in LA County, so he and his buddies won’t have any problem paying $400 per person to dine on caviar under the stars and hob-knobbing with the ruling elite while dishwashers in LA struggle to pay their electric bills.

It’s just all the unwashed masses in the city who will suffer. 

Then again, LA is controlled by Democrats, so they're probably used to that.

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