Council adopts resolution challenging business closures

CROMWELL — The Town Council has adopted a declaration challenging Gov. Lamont’s decision concerning which stores are allowed to remain open during the continuing coronavirus pandemic.

The majority of the Republican-dominated council has pushed to speed up open the reopening of small businesses.

In doing so, members called attention to Lamont’s

series of executive orders issued during the pandemic that allowed national retailers such as Walmart and Lowes to remain open while denying the same right to small, often family-owned businesses.

The declaration — which was adopted by a vote of 5-1 — contends Lamont’s delay in allowing small businesses to reopen “is not justified either legally or realistically.”

The council last week voted 6-0 to have Town Attorney Kari Olson create a declaration that now will be sent to the governor, in hopes it will change his mind about accelerating the reopening of businesses across the state.

Olson’s draft reaffirmed the governor’s right to enact regulations reasonably necessary to lessen the spread of the virus and to protect the public.

However, she challenged the decision to pick and choose which stores could remain open and those that must be closed, arguing the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires laws to be applied equally.

Olson quoted from a ruling handed down May 13 by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which said in part, “(I)ndiviual rights secure by the Constitution do not disappear during a public health crisis.”

James Demetriades, one of two Democrats on the council, voted against the declaration.

Last week, he had supported asking Olson to create a draft.

But he said Tuesday she had exceeded her charge by including “a commentary regarding the legality or constitutionality of the governor’s executive orders.”