Small-biz suit: Blaz, we are not vax cops!
Eateries, gyms blast ‘extortion tactics’
The city’s mandate requiring people to show proof of vaccination to eat indoors and hit the gym is akin to “extortion” and unconstitutional, a group of local businesses argue in a new lawsuit aiming to halt the policy.
The coalition of establishments, including an Italian restaurant on Staten Island and a Brooklyn gym, sued Mayor de Blasio and the city in Staten Island Supreme Court, saying they’re unfairly targeted by the mandate that is based on questionable science and devastating to their bottom line.
“This is not our responsibility to do the dirty work of the city,” Robert DeLuca, owner of DeLuca’s Italian Restaurant on Staten Island, told the Daily News on Wednesday.
The mayor is “using extortion tactics to bully restaurants and other small businesses … to carry out what he basically wants to create as a two-tiered society — vaccinated and unvaccinated,” he added.
On Tuesday, the city began requiring establishments — from bars and restaurants to gyms and cultural venues — to check customers for proof of vaccination before allowing them to enter. Employees must be vaccinated, too.
The city plans to begin enforcing the new rules — aimed at encouraging more New Yorkers to get jabbed — next month.
But the lawsuit, supported by local pols including Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-S.I.), argues the businesses in question were singled out in an “arbitrary and capricious” way.
The complaint, filed Tuesday night, asks a judge to block the mandate.
“There’s no scientific evidence to show that their establishments transmit the virus ... significantly more than other establishments,” lawyer Mark Fonte, who’s representing the plaintiffs, said of restaurants and gyms.
“They are not being treated equally or fairly and this mandate arbitrarily selects restaurants and fitness centers for further enforcement,” he added.
The longer a person interacts with others indoors, the higher the risk of getting COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC puts indoor dining at bars and restaurants in the “highest risk” category for contracting the virus, compared with scenarios like curbside food pickup and outdoor dining.
De Blasio on Wednesday voiced “tremendous confidence” that the city would beat the lawsuit.
“The decisions that have been taken, have been taken with the leadership of our health officials who have been fighting this battle from the beginning,” he said at a press conference.
Along with arguing they’re being unfairly targeted, the plaintiffs say the mandate infringes on their right to earn a living.
Pointing to Health Department stats showing 62.9% of residents have received at least one vaccine shot, DeLuca said he fears losing a big chunk of business.
“Is the city going to come in and back me financially, until everyone’s vaccinated?” he said. “Is the city going to make up for those losses? What about if I can’t pay all my employees?”
One of the plaintiffs is a group calling itself Independent Restaurant Owners Association Rescue (or “IROAR”). About 200 small businesses are members, most of them based in Brooklyn and Staten Island, according to DeLuca. In May 2020, the group sued to stop restrictions on restaurant capacity, but the state policy changed before the case made its way through the courts.
The Supreme Court held in 1905 that states could impose compulsory vaccination — at that time to combat smallpox.
Fonte credited Malliotakis with encouraging local businesses to sue the city over the COVID mandate.
“It is beyond ridiculous that the government is mandating these already struggling small business owners to be the city’s ‘vaccine police,’” the congresswoman said in a statement.
Both DeLuca and Fonte insisted they’re not against vaccination.
“This is not an anti-vaccination lawsuit; it’s an anti-mandate lawsuit,” the lawyer said.