Nashville business owners who are gearing up to reopen Monday better comply with all of Mayor John Cooper’s safety rules for COVID-19, or else police might pay them a visit.
As The Tennessee Star reported Friday, after days in quarantine, Nashville will move to Phase One of Cooper’s plan to reopen the city’s economy, at least partially, this coming Monday.
Metro Public Health Director Michael Caldwell said at a press conference Friday that for the first offense county officials will tell managers how to comply — and come back later to make sure they are doing just that. For a second infraction county officials will deliver a warning.
“Even after the warning, if they do not listen to us there are a number of actions we could take,” Caldwell said.
“There is fining, as well as [actions against] whatever permits they may have, depending on the type of facility that they are. They will jeopardize those permits, but we don’t want to get to that level.”
Caldwell also encouraged people to never give business to any establishments that don’t toe the line.
Metro Health spokesman Brian Todd told The Star in an email Friday that county officials have already responded to more than 500 complaints since Cooper announced his Safer at Home Order.
“Any retail establishment that is not following the Order can be warned or can be cited (Slider House is an example) and can be fined $50 per infraction. MPHD’s citation would be to Metro Environmental Court,” Todd said.
“And it is there the business could be fined $50 per violation which, depending on the nature of the violation, could [be] $50 per person involved in the violation. For example if a restaurant with a maximum allowable number of 50 people was cited for having 100 people inside, then the establishment could be fined $50 for each person over the allowable capacity.”
As The Tennessee Star reported last month, Cooper issued a four-phased plan to reopen Nashville’s economy.
According to ASafeNashville.org, for each of the four phases Nashville is in, city officials will only advance to the next phase if the area meets one of two benchmarks. The website said either the number of COVID-19 cases in Davidson County must remain stable or the number must decline over a 14-day period.
Caldwell said Friday that county officials have ample resources to police all of Nashville’s businesses.
“We will hire up to 20 additional environmental health investigators,” Caldwell said.
“This will complement our already existing team of 10 to assess and to ensure compliance with our Phase One reopening.”
Caldwell also said people who want to complain about a local business can file a report at the county government’s website.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Metro Nashville Police Car” by Nashville.gov.
When did Cooper become a monarch?
Noted that phrases like “toe the line” etc. was being used. I’m sure some little Nazis will be more than happy to inform on businesses that don’t “toe the line.’
“Those who give up Liberty for safety will lose both and deserve neither. ” –Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin both said this in slightly different quotes
More recently, a classical liberal SCOTUS Justice and an anti-slavery activist spoke of the dangerous of arbitrary and authoritarian government by executive fiat:
“Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself. It invites anarchy. To declare that, in the administration of the law, the end justifies the means would bring a terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine, this Court should resolutely set its face.” –Louis D. Brandeis, SCOTUS Justice, Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress”. — Frederick Douglass
“
As long as this doesn’t affect my hot-yoga I’m good with it.
Not very long ago, it was reported that Metro Police had a large shortage of police officers. So now, they will be used to enforce “rules”, arbitrary rules that discriminate against “non essential” businesses. The police are LAW enforcement officers who enforce Constitutionally passed laws, not “rules” of the executive department which are themselves violations of the Law.
We were told such “rules” were to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by Corinavirus patients. That never happened, not even close. Many medical staff are furloughed and out of work. Now the narrative has changed. These arbitrary rules are to be imposed or we can’t get back to normal, a “normal”, yet to be determined by our overlords.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
― C.S. Lewis
If you notice, the headline grabs you but nowhere in the article does it say the MNPD will be involved. Trust me, we won’t……
I’m glad the police are doing this because, as much as I want businesses to safely reopen, I put public safety first over profit. “Safely” is the key word here.
“Public safety over profit”, hey, that’s a good idea for ALL involved. No salary for the Mayor and no property taxes for the closed businesses until these “rules” are ended. I wouldn’t apply it to the police since they are just “following orders”.
I am not a resident or business owner in Metro Nashville, but this is a disturbing turn of events from the Mayor. My first thought was Germany in the 1930s and early 1940s. This makes me sad.
Yeah… I saw a group of Brown Shirts getting ready to march just the other day…
Tyrants at work. Defy Mayor Cooper and his fascist minions. These communists must be stopped
The scamdemic power hungry elf strikes again..He is a liar and his flunkies are providing false numbers on the scamdemic to give him more power and control. Cooper probably wants to bankrupt some bars and restaurants so he or some of his cronies can buy them cheap., Before it’s over he will shut Nashville down again so he can get national attention and feed his power hungry perversion. He wants Nashville’s economy at its worse to justify his socialist tax increase.