Restaurants poised for potential city fines due to outdoor dining

Downtown Sonora restaurant owners are preparing for an imminent showdown with city officials regarding their deliberate defiance of COVID-19 restrictions, which currently prohibit outside dining, though they argue this is the only way their businesses will survive the pandemic.

“I know that I’ve chosen to defy the orders, but our staff and our city and our community is struggling,” said Cindy Zelinksy, owner of Emberz Wood-fired Foodz on South Washington Street. “I’m willing to help, but not everyone will see it as help, and I understand that.”

Zelinksy said her business received a cease-and-desist order from the city on Wednesday that described a fine schedule for violations and said customers could be fined as well. It also said she had 24 hours to contact the city about how to “fix the situation.” She said she refused to close and contacted the city regarding guidelines and asked for the text of the complaints.

Zelinksy and another downtown business owner both argued separately that the restaurant industry was being unduly victimized under the COVID-19 restric tions.

“The city is using us against each other, and they are using the fear of our businesses against us. The fear that they keep projecting is making people go into survival mode. And sometimes when we’re in survival mode, we forget who our real enemy is,” Zelinksy said, but she speculated that local businesses may be getting fine notices within the next week to put pressure on them to close.

“At the end of the day if we don’t open up our businesses, we’re going to lose them, so who gives a crap about the fines?” she said. “At least we are trying to salvage what we can salvage.”

Outside and inside dining is prohibited under Gov. Gavin Newsom’s current regional stay-at-home order for the San Joaquin Valley region, where Tuolumne County and the City of Sonora are located.

The region still had 0% ICU beds available within a four-week projection as of Monday and was not eligible to exit the stay at home order. Regions can exit the order when the metric rises above 15% ICU availability.

A regional stay-at-home order for the Sacramento region was lifted last week and returned individual counties within it to the color-coded and tiered reopening guidelines, which allows outdoor dining in most cases.

Whether the council will consider fines against any of the downtown Sonora restaurants is unknown at this time.

The end of the council’s meeting scheduled for Tuesday includes a communication item: “Receive an update concerning the City of Sonora COVID-19 Education and Compliance program as related to the City Council adopted Urgency Ordinance 866,” including any fines or cease-and-desist orders issued.

City Administrator Mary Rose Rutikanga could not be reached for comment on Monday, and there is no agendized discus

sion at this time mentioning businesses by name.

Sonora Mayor Matt Hawkins, who serves on the council, said the item during Tuesday’s meeting would simply be a communication of information from other city officials.

“There’s no real direction that they are asking the council, or they’d have to agendize it,” he said.

Hawkins said he was working to bring a discussion up with the council about the elimination of fines, which were codified in April as noncriminal penalties for violating COVID-19 restrictions.

“We did the fines in good faith because the state was coming down so hard on us,” he said, adding that he now did not feel the state and federal governments were meeting their responsibility to provide assistance to struggling businesses.

“We did our best in order to protect businesses,” he said. “That’s why fines were enacted, but the fine schedule is now a detriment.”

The fine schedule is $250 for the first violation, $500 for the second violation and $1,000 for subsequent violations. The city has not levied any fines, though the closest they came to one was during a six-hour marathon meeting in December following a private celebration of life gathering at The Sportsman, a downtown bar and gun shop.

Dozens appeared virtually at the meeting to speak out in support of The Sportsman, and some challenged the legality of the city holding businesses accountable for a violation.

Following the decision against The Sportsman — the council opted for a non-punitive educational warning — some council members said they would likely not tolerate deliberate disregard for the COVID-19 guidelines in the future.

However, Hawkins said he commiserated with downtown businesses because he felt they were doing their best to feed their families during a crisis that went on longer than anyone expected.

“I can’t blame them one bit,” he said. “The quarantine was supposed to be a few weeks, maybe a few months, and now it’s gone on for nine months. If someone put a choice to me of following the law and not feeding my family, or not following the law and feeding my family, I’m going to feed my family. I will not say I endorse it, but I will say if I was in their spot and against a wall, I would also be open and serving outside.”

A torrent of complaints came against Emberz after the discussion about The Sportsman, Zelinksy said, when city officials called on the public to submit complaints about other businesses who may be non-compliant.

The complaint document itemizes multiple complaints between June 15, 2020 and January 10, 2021. Zelinksy said there were 24 total since March.

Some of the complaints are specific to Emberz and include what appears to be written text from the people submitting the complaints, while others are as simple as “business is serving outside.”

“It’s astonishing to me that Ms. Zelinksy has so little concern for halting and controlling our ongoing health crisis. Whether she’s ever able to reopen completely depends on her cooperation. I wonder how long it will take her to realize the serious spread she and her unmasked customers are causing,” wrote one on December 26, 2020 in an email.

Some complaints have blacked out names or sections. They do not identify who made the complaints.

Zelinksy said she did not start to serve outside again until the end of November because of appeals from her staff prior to the Christmas season.

She felt indoor dining would be “disrespectful,” she noted, though with outside service she felt she could maintain some distancing and hygiene.

“I was doing the best thing for my staff as well as trying to be responsible and keep the public as safe as possible,” she said.

Zelinksy said the city did not follow up to see if the complaints were valid and described many of them as vague.

“I just feel like at the end of the day we have not reduced or put restrictions on Walmart or Lowes or any of those places. It’s the industry right now that has had the most hardships,” she said.

Zelinksy said City Councilman Mark Plummer and Mayor Matt Hawkins reached out to her and said her “heart breaks” for City Administrator Mary Rose Rutikanga, who she believed was a good person and had to act at the behest of the council.

“I just think that the city council has lost touch,” she said.

Zelinksy said her staff uses masks and gloves and special sanitizing equipment on six outside tables after every meal. She said they still serve alcohol in to-go containers with sealed lids to comply with ABC regulations.

With take out, Zelinksy said Emberz may have $300 a day. With full service, between $3,000 and $7,000. Outdoors, she said she makes approximately $1,500 to $3,000 a day.

“Customers are obviously wanting this. I’m serving locals sometimes three times a week. Doesn’t that say something?” Zelinsky said.

Other business owners are just as frustrated with the regulations.

Lana Smith, one of owners at Diamondback Grill, said they were closed for six weeks in compliance with the state regulations, but they had to open in order to save the business.

This weekend, Diamondback Grill hosted outdoor seating in the Linoberg Paseo and table service.

“We can’t pay our bills. Were going broke,” Smith said. “We were going to go out of business.”

Smith said she and many others blamed the city’s draconian regulations for the hardship, noting she saw outside dining at other restaurants throughout the region.

“The city should leave us alone. Let us do our business. It’s not restaurants causing COVID,” Smith said. “I’m angry because they pick and choose who they want to pick on. As long as we’re being clean and social distancing we should be allowed to serve outside.”

Smith said she did not know if her business had recently received a ceaseand-desist order.

Other downtown businesses appear to be in some form of operation, though many have opted to to-go orders only.

Sonora Brewing Company has tables outside their restaurant and had people eating outside over the weekend, though the owner could not be reached for comment.

El Arroyo Cantina and Mexican Kitchen is allowing customers to sit outside along Sonora Creek with their to-go orders, though they are not hosting service out at the tables.

Sonora Taqueria had their inside chairs stacked on tables to disallow inside diners and is only doing togo.

Hong Kong Garden Restaurant and Sonora Thai are only offering to-go orders.