Some eateries face fines as they defy health orders
ANTIOCH >> At Lumpy’s Diner in Antioch during a recent noon hour, table servers were taking orders, customers were chatting over burgers and cooks were furiously whipping up entrees in the kitchen. It looked like a typical busy eatery, with a couple of big exceptions.
The restaurant’s coowner, Gena Noack, wasn’t wearing a mask while making the rounds greeting customers, despite a Contra Costa County mandate to do so. Neither were most of the dozen or so workers that day, though most customers wore masks while walking into the diner.
It is not the only county health order that the restaurant wasn’t following. The management at Lumpy’s Diner has openly refused to check customers for proof they’ve been vaccinated — a requirement in Contra Costa County.
The diner has joined a small handful of restaurants that have defied the health order, including popular burger chain In-N-Out, which shut down indoor operations in the county after being fined. At Lumpy’s. Noack said the restaurant’s noncompliance is a matter of personal freedom and has nothing to do with opposing vaccines.
“I don’t care to know who is and who isn’t vaccinated,” Noack said. “I’m saying, ‘I’m not checking, because I respect you.’ ”
For violating the county’s public health orders and not verifying vaccinations — a requirement only San Francisco and Berkeley have also instituted — Lumpy’s Diner has been slapped with fines of $250, $500 and $1,000 after customers complained anonymously, according to the county health department.
Not that the diner cared much. Until recently, it displayed a sign on one of its windows that read: “We do not discriminate against any customer based on sex, gender, race, creed, age, unvaccinated or vaccinated. All customers who wish to patronize are welcome in our establishment.”
Noack explained that blowback online — mostly on Facebook — led the restaurant to remove the sign. She worried that additional exposure in local media could further jeopardize the diner’s fate.
The county has not been swayed by the restaurant’s defiance. If it verifies one more complaint of a violation, it has threatened to suspend Lumpy Diner’s commercial food permit. It’s an odd turn of events for a diner whose late founder, Jeremy Sturgill, nicknamed Lumpy, was named citizen of the year by the Brentwood Chamber of Commerce in 2015. Sturgill also ran a Lumpy’s Diner in Brentwood that has since closed.
Lumpy’s isn’t alone in thumbing its nose at the county’s health orders.
Last month, In-N-Out Burger voluntarily closed all its Contra Costa County restaurants for indoor dining. It took the action after the commercial permit for its Pleasant Hill location was suspended after violating the vaccine check requirement on at least four occasions.
But resistance, at least as gauged by fines issued, has been scattered. Besides Lumpy’s and In-N-Out, the burger chain Fuddruckers in Concord, MJ’s Downtown Cafe in Brentwood and Huckleberry’s Breakfast and Lunch in Concord all have been caught violating the order, according to the county health department. Huckleberry’s received a warning but was not fined.
Fuddruckers got a $250 fine last month following an earlier warning. The only other restaurants to violate the order more than once were In-N-Out and Lumpy’s Diner.
“In Contra Costa County, the primary goal of health order enforcement is to educate businesses and residents about how to keep themselves and the community safe from COVID-19,” the county’s health department said in a statement last month. It said most businesses were complying with the mask mandate and checking vaccination status.
Vicky, a manager at Huckleberry’s Breakfast and Lunch, confirmed that the Concord restaurant received a warning from the county last month following an anonymous complaint, but added that management has since resolved the violation.
“It was a misunderstanding,” said Vicky, who declined to give her last name. “I think people are kind of crazy; they open the door and yell at us that we’re not checking (for vaccination cards).”
When the order first went into effect, restaurant owners in Contra Costa County said they were wary of having to police their customers. Lumpy’s Diner co-owner Noack said most customers are grateful to eat somewhere where their vaccination status won’t be questioned.
“If I had a dollar for every single customer who gave me a positive comment, I could open seven more restaurants,” she said. “Almost every single person that comes in says thank you.”
Customers coming and going from Lumpy’s Diner on a recent weekday said they’re grateful for the restaurant refusing to check their vaccine status and criticized the county for going after it and other businesses that do the same.
“This is the best place for everyone to go — everyone here is pro-choice,” said Jezreel Francisco, an Army National Guard staff sergeant and Pittsburg resident who said he rarely has to pay for a meal at the diner because of his military service.
As he was leaving with his family, Brentwood resident Marc Johnston said he’s worried the restaurant would face more grief from the county. That wouldn’t be good for him, either, Johnston acknowledged, since he is unvaccinated and running out of dining options. However, nothing that health officials say or do will persuade him to get the shots.
“It boils down to you asked us to do 15 days to stop the spread,” Johnston said. “It has now metamorphized into I can’t even go into restaurants. I might not even be employed for much longer. It’s all about power, not safety. So I’m definitely not getting it.”