Attorneys for the cities of Dana Point and Huntington Beach Friday afternoon will seek temporary restraining orders as they resist Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order of a temporary “hard close” of beaches in Orange County, where hundreds of protesters Friday demonstrated against the shutdown and called for the reopening of businesses.
The governor, in his daily briefing, brushed off the lawsuits in alluding to the TRO hearing scheduled before an Orange County Superior Court judge.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Newsom said. “We’ll see what happens this afternoon.”
On mass gatherings like the one Friday near the Huntington Beach pier and congregating on beaches, Newsom hinted at announcements next week that could lead to a relaxing of stay-at-home orders, but added, “We can screw all that up. We can set all that back by making bad decisions.”
“All of that works because people have done an incredible job in their physical distancing. But we change that and we see the images we saw last weekend and concentration of thousands of people, we could start to see a spread again,” he said. “That’s the only thing that could set us back.”
Speaking to protesters both in Sacramento and Huntington Beach, Newsom said, “All I ask for is this: that is, take care of yourself. Wear a face covering. Do justice to physical distancing. You don’t want to contract this disease. … This disease doesn’t know if you’re a protester, Democrat, Republican, if you support the election of one candidate or the ouster of another. It just knows one thing, and that is its host. And it has a remarkable ability — people with asymptomatic conditions — to transport to someone else. Just protect yourself, protect your family. Protect your kids, your parents, your grandparents, your friends, your neighbors, people that you’re protesting with. That’s all I would say to them, and thank them for their expression of free speech.”
About 700 protesters, many of them without face coverings, milled around Huntington Beach downtown near the pier. Police on horseback kept them out of the streets.
One of those protesters, Monica Beilhart of Tustin, said “only a few” of the demonstrators wore masks and that some of the local stores opened for business. A plane flew overhead referring to the governor as “gruesome Newsom” as it called on him to “open California,” Beilhart said.
“People are out here with their shirts off, sunlight, enjoying the weather,” Beilhart said. “They’re chanting USA, chanting about the constitution, and just trying to get their voices heard.”
Referring to earlier, smaller protests, Beilhart said Friday saw a larger gathering because of the governor’s beach closure order.
“It was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she said. “It was uncalled for, unnecessary and people out here are making that known. And we’re also very much saying enough is enough, we have the right to work, people have the right to work and that it’s time for the governor to allow the healthy to be able to get back to business.”
Beilhart’s family is in real estate and has a medical consulting company that have been hit hard by the coronavirus, she said. Her husband has had to make “heartbreaking” decisions to lay off workers, and their inability to evict some tenants who claim a hardship is also hurting her family, she said.
“As a landlord we have to still make our mortgage payments, so that’s challenging,” Beilhart said.
The governor’s move Thursday prompted the city councils of Dana Point and Huntington Beach to vote to seek to lift the shutdown order. The Newport Beach City Council will discuss joining the litigation, and San Clemente’s City Council scheduled a special meeting Friday evening to do the same.
“We believe the governor’s order is unconstitutional, vague and ambiguous,” said Huntington Beach City Attorney Michael Gates. “He doesn’t have a rational basis for this. What he seeks is a remedy to something that wasn’t a problem in the first place.”
Huntington Beach officials said they believe being a charter city gives it more authority to self-governance that prevents Newsom from shutting down its beaches.
“We’re not simply a component of the state,” Gates said. “The city has some level of autonomy and independence.”
On Monday, Newsom lamented images of crowds that gathered on some beaches in Orange County — particularly in Newport Beach — last weekend, saying such masses of people are a feeding ground for COVID-19 and could reverse the progress the state has made in “flattening the curve” of the illness.
Newsom repeated those concerns Thursday, while noting the “vast majority” of the state did not have issues with large crowds gathering.
“But in areas where we didn’t see that, you have to acknowledge that, you have to own that. And you have to figure that out,” Newsom said. “I’ve been led by my health directors … that feel we need to address that a little more specifically in a targeted way — the volume of people in a concentrated space, particularly in … a few coastal cities, off and around the Orange County area.
Newsom had expressed optimism earlier this week that local Orange County officials would take action to prevent a recurrence of last weekend’s beach gatherings.
However, on Tuesday, the Newport Beach City Council rejected a proposal to shutter beaches for the next three weekends and Laguna Beach City Council voted to allow “active use” of the beaches from 6 to 10 a.m. weekdays beginning Monday.
Orange County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Michelle Steel said there was “no rational basis” for Newsom’s “arbitrary and capricious” order and that law enforcement did a “fantastic job” this past weekend encouraging social distancing on the beaches.
“We should be rewarding our communities for practicing safe social distancing, not punishing them by only shutting down Orange County beaches,” Steel said Thursday.
Steel has insisted that hospitalization rates have shown the county has been flattening the curve. On Thursday, the county’s Health Care Agency reported 145 coronavirus patients hospitalized, with 63 in intensive care, and one additional death.
Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, who supports Newsom’s order, said Steel’s remarks were dangerous.
“How could she possibly say the curve is being flattened when the hospital rates are higher than ever?” Umberg said. “The trajectory is higher than ever.”
Umberg said Steel is “creating a false sense of security,” which encourages residents to head to the beaches.
“I don’t hear any public health professionals clamoring to open the beaches,” Umberg said.
Steel and Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner argued Newsom decided to close the beaches based on a couple of newspaper photographs. They said the depth of field was collapsed by a telephoto lens, making it appear Newport Beach was more congested.
However, Newport Beach City Councilman Jeff Herdman, who represents Balboa Island, said there were large crowds on the beaches this past weekend. He said about 40,000 people from outside the area descended on the city without practicing social distancing such as wearing masks.
“They have no business being here and once they get here, they’re trying to find a parking place, filling up our neighborhoods with cars, getting out of their cars, converging on the beach, not wearing masks and not observing social distancing as they lug their coolers, chairs and beach towels to the beach,” Herdman said.
That prevents residents from using their own city to get exercise, Herdman said.
Wagner urged Newsom to work with county officials, saying they heard about the order 15 minutes before Newsom’s daily briefing. Wagner said it was unlikely county officials would want to sue the state since they would largely be in a position of suing themselves.
Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, whose deputies patrol about 16% of the shoreline, said he would try to seek “voluntary compliance” from beachgoers, which has been his policy since the pandemic began. He said the policy has been effective.
Sen. John Moorlach, R-Costa Mesa, condemned Newsom’s order.
“Gov. Newsom just doesn’t seem to get it,” Moorlach said. “Orange County residents have been responsible. They’ve followed healthcare officials’ prudent recommendations and respected the science.
“The county hasn’t seen the `surge’ in its hospitals, and six weeks into this shelter-in-place order, the beach may be the best medicine.”
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