National Post (National Edition)
Colorado restaurant illegally reopens
OWNERS DEFY STATE TO ‘SUPPORT THE CONSTITUTION’
The armed bouncer appeared friendly, welcoming a local reporter inside C& C Coffee and Kitchen in Castle Rock, Colo., to take video footage of the remarkable scene unfolding inside.
In the restaurant on Sunday morning, in defiance of Governor Jared Polis’s executive Safer at Home order, every table was nearly full, according to the footage from Colorado Community Media reporter Nick Puckett. Customers crowded around the counter waiting for their orders. The line to place them went out the door, wrapping around the side of the building. Almost no one was wearing a face mask. For the owners of the breakfast café, it was a way to both celebrate Mother’s Day and defy the governor.
“We are standing for America, small businesses, the Constitution and against the overreach of our governor in Colorado!!” C& C Coffee & Kitchen tweeted, tagging President Donald Trump.
The restaurant’s reopening on Mother’s Day, with apparently no social-distancing precautions, is the latest example of small businesses bucking their states’ executive orders while fearing for their survival. Under Polis’s order, restaurants are still prohibited from offering dine-in service. Colorado has seen more than 19,700 cases of COVID-19, along with 973 deaths.
State and local officials condemned the move and some Castle Rock residents feared the restaurant could have worsened COVID-19 in the community. A spokeswoman for the governor’s office said in a statement to The Washington Post that the restaurant’s conduct is “endangering the lives of their staff, customers and community.” The Tri-County Health Department told CBS Denver it would be following up with the restaurant to take whatever steps necessary to ensure it complies with Polis’s order.
“We are disappointed that Cookies and Crème has decided to ignore the Governor’s Safer at Home order and open up today with no attention to social distancing,” the agency said in its statement. “This decision runs the risk of undermining the impact that other Douglas County businesses and residents have achieved over the last seven weeks by taking various social-distancing measures.”
The Korean-fusion breakfast cafe’s owners, April and Jesse Arellano, did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment. But April Arellano told Puckett that she had never seen a Mother’s Day crowd at the restaurant like the one on Sunday in their seven years of operation. She said the restaurant had about 500 customers.
“I expected it to be busy. I never expected this,” she told Colorado Community Media. “I’m so happy so many people came out to support the Constitution and stand up for what is right. We did our time. We did our two weeks. We did more than two weeks … and we were failing. We had to do something.”
Others in the restaurant industry said they understood the restaurant’s frustrations but completely disagreed with the owners.
“Hey C& C Breakfast + Korean Kitchen Owner, what you allowed today completely harms the Colorado Restaurant Industry! You may have won the battle but you will lose the war,” Chris Fuselier, owner of the Blake Street Tavern in Denver, warned on Twitter.
Another man who went to the restaurant to pick up takeout told the Denver Post he was so taken aback by the lack of social distancing and face masks that he didn’t want his food anymore.
“It was unbelievable,” the customer, Nick Whitehill, told the newspaper.
But the restaurant also had plenty of supporters. Among them was state representative Patrick Neville, a Republican who is also among a number of conservative lawmakers nationwide who have joined their constituents in acts of defiance. He said on Facebook that, after taking a photograph with Arellano at the restaurant on Sunday, the “left mob is coming after me over this hardcore.”
In a text message to The Washington Post, Neville said he went to the restaurant on Sunday to return the kindness the owners showed his family a couple of years ago, when his wife was hit by a car outside the restaurant and they brought out hot cocoa to Neville’s daughters.
“They made a lasting impression on my family and we wanted to show our support as they are providing for their families,” Neville said.
The business owners’ decisions to reopen is also largely a gamble in the court of public opinion. A recent Washington Post-University of Maryland poll showed sizable majorities of Americans opposing reopening dine-in restaurants, movie theatres and gyms.
THE LEFT MOB IS COMING AFTER ME OVER THIS HARDCORE.