California Business Owners Sue Gov. Newsom Over the Lockdowns

How far do "emergency powers" really extend?

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"[The police] asked me, are you knowingly going against Gavin Newsom's orders? And I said, 'Yes,'" says Annie Rammel, co-owner of the Oak and Elixir restaurant in the San Diego County beach town of Carlsbad, which was the site of mass disobedience of statewide lockdown orders in 2020.

On December 3, 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) ordered all California restaurants to stop serving customers in person and to convert their businesses to takeout only. It was the third shutdown order of the pandemic. Rammel had decided that enough was enough

"When the same person that's telling you and restricting you from being open is going to a restaurant himself and eating inside, not six feet apart, it puts a little fire in you to say… this isn't right," Rammel tells Reason, referring to photos capturing Newsom dining indoors unmasked with lobbyists at the pricey French Laundry restaurant less than a month earlier.

"I'm going to stand up for my rights. I'm going to stand up for my business that I worked extremely hard to run and to have, and I'm going to stand up for the community."

Rammel was skeptical of Newsom's assurances that the latest order would only last a few weeks and began organizing resistance with other local business owners.

"I told restaurant owners, you're not smart if you think this is only going to be three weeks. It's definitely going to be months. And I was right."

Rammel and other Carlsbad businesses formed a coalition that eventually numbered in the hundreds.

"We opened up, and it was crazy because [Carlsbad was] really the only city that was doing this outspokenly and telling the community, telling the news that we were going to stay open," says Rammel. "And we were going to continue to be safe. We're going to continue to wear masks and sanitize and six feet apart and do everything that we had been doing before. But that we were not going to close down."

Rammel was issued a citation by San Diego's public health department and by the state alcohol board, which threatened to revoke her liquor license.

But the county sheriff had decided not to enforce the governor's order. The local police issued her a citation, but she says they apologized as they did so.

"They said, 'We just want you to know that we don't want to be doing this. We want you guys to survive this, sorry,' as they're handing me the paper," says Rammel.

Today, the coalition that defied the governor's orders is suing Newsom and their state and local health departments to drop the fines and compensate them for losses incurred because of the shutdowns. The defendants in the case declined to comment for this story. Whoever prevails, the case could have implications for what the scope of executive power truly is in a state of emergency.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller; camera by Dillon Mortensen; graphics by Isaac Reese

Photo credits: Jim Ruymen; Brian Feinzimer/Sipa USA/Newscom; Dean Musgrove/Zumapress/Newscom; Paul Kitagaki Jr./Zumapress/Newscom