Posted on by Californiacontrarian

The Canary in the Coal Mine?

In May in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania the Taste of Sicily restaurant reopened in defiance of state orders. The restaurant had initially closed down for two months in obedience with the original state orders. However in May, the owners of the family restaurant said, “no way.” The restaurant left it up to its customers as to masks and social distancing. They were subsequently fined close to $10,000 for violating Governor Wolf’s (Dem) mandate.

Then the vengeful governor fixated his attention on Lebanon County and the Republican leadership supporting small businesses like Taste of Sicily that defied state orders. Wolf decided to withhold $13 million in funding from the county on July 17, leaving it as the only county in the state to have been cut off from the $625 million package of coronavirus relief funds. Wolf blamed the Republican-controlled Board of Commissioners in Lebanon County.

The restaurant, which is co-owned by siblings Michael Mangano and Christine Wartluft, took its case to court, and was found not guilty in September. A federal judge ruled that Wolf’s gathering restrictions and shutdowns of non-essential businesses during the coronavirus pandemic were unconstitutional.

Taste of Sicily’s  lawyer, Eric Winter, told he Daily Caller that Wolf’s and the Department of Health’s Orders couldn’t be punished under Pennsylvania criminal law.

“The mask mandate, the plexiglass, the social distancing, all of those things that the governor and [Secretary of Health Rachel] Levine were implementing are not an enforceable citation,” Mangano, the owner, told the Daily Caller. “In other words, they can’t legally enforce that. This says that any fine that you get from the state is legally non-enforceable.”

I say it’s about time that small business owners stand up to the diktats of “health commissioners” and governors. The arbitrary designation of businesses into “essential and non-essential” is obviously arbitrary and thus unconstitutional. Hopefully the verdict in Pennsylvania is the needed canary in the coal mine. Perhaps this will embolden more small business owners to stand up for their constitutional rights.

We’ll see.

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