Eric Adams held donor/vector fundraiser dinner at a restaurant in South Richmond Hill

 

NY Daily News 

 Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams held an in-person fundraiser for his mayoral campaign at a club located inside a COVID “yellow zone” in Queens on Saturday.

“I thank you, brother Ross, for opening this amazing place, this beautiful place ... allowing us to come in and to host this event,” he said inside Ross Code Lounge in the South Richmond Hill neighborhood.

“This is going to be my hangout, a safe, comfortable place where people can come and enjoy themselves,” he added.

The club’s 117-15 101st Ave. address is located inside one of the areas determined by the state to be a COVID “yellow zone,” according to an online map of the zones.

Restrictions in such zones include a 25-person limit on “mass gatherings.” Asked Sunday how many people attended the fundraiser, Adams’s campaign said there were eight people, adding that they were required to wear masks and practice social distancing. 

Including Adams and his muscle and the photographer in the pic there, there are 3 people over the limit.

Asked why Adams was holding in-person fundraisers during the pandemic, his campaign spokesman Evan Thies said in a phone call, “My question to you is, why not do that? … Who is saying that we should not be doing that besides you?

“It’s been a pandemic now for eight months and people have been doing in-person events all across the city every night,” he added.

In an email statement, Thies said, “Eric strongly agrees with New York State’s science-based approach to the coronavirus, and the campaign will continue to follow the law and best health and safety practices.

“As a former dishwasher, Eric knows how important it is to the families of working people to support our small businesses while the State still deems it safe to do so,” Thies added.

The event was billed online as a “meet & greet fundraiser” with a “maximum contribution” listed as $2,000.

“We’ve out-raised the whole field,” he crowed. “Nobody has more money.”

 Yeah, Adams is going to be great mayor of the people. Four more years of defiant entitlement and hypocrisy and surely incompetence as the donor class continues to dominate policy and civic services distribution.

 

 

Governor Cuomo mandates 10 P.M. curfew for bars, restaurants and gyms

Gothamist 

Bars and restaurants with liquor licenses will be required to close at 10 p.m., along with gyms, and all indoor gatherings at private residences will be capped at ten people, under new statewide coronavirus restrictions announced on Wednesday by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Staten Island will also face additional lockdown measures, the governor said.

"Bars, restaurants, gyms, house parties — that's where it's coming from, primarily," Cuomo told reporters. "If these measures aren't sufficient to slow the spread, we will turn the valve more," he added, referring to additional restrictions.

The new orders come as COVID cases and hospitalizations across the country have skyrocketed to levels not seen since spring. Earlier on Wednesday, New York City reported its highest number of daily infections since May.

The statewide positive test rate was 2.9 percent, and 1,628 people were in the hospital with the virus as of Wednesday. "What were are seeing is what they predicted for months," the governor said.

NYS is taking action to stop the spread in response to rising COVID numbers.

Any establishment with a state liquor license, including bars and restaurants, must close at 10pm.

Gyms must also close at 10pm.

These new statewide rules will take effect Friday, 10pm.

— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) November 11, 2020

Arbitrary fines from pandemic guidelines are crippling small businesses

 

CBS New York

  Business owners already struggling because of the coronavirus pandemic are getting hit again, this time with summonses and fines for not following COVID guidelines.

Lorraine Gericke, manager of Best Tress Hair Salon, was told by a city inspector she was doing it all wrong, using a notebook to write down customers’ temperatures and information for contact tracing.

“They’re slapping us with a $1,000 fine, which is so unfair,” she told CBS2’s Dave Carlin.

The penalty of one grand is because they did not use city forms instead.

“We were not aware that we needed these,” Gericke said.

 Yi Qiang Chen learned he needed a paper displayed on his Jade Bamboo restaurant storefront indicating maximum capacity.

“I’m angry but I cannot do nothing you know,” he said.

He says the inspector told him, and just one day later, another inspector returned and fined him $1,000.

“They don’t give me the time to do that, you know,” Chen said.

On one block of Dry Harbor Road in Middle Village, Queens, at least four business were hit with fines and, in some cases, multiple fines.

Louise Fawcett, of Matson’s Delicatessen, has five documents displayed on her deli’s door, but she says she was fined $1,000 for not having a thermometer.

“You have to have one that’s non-contact,” Fawcett said. “I ordered it online the day before they gave me a summons.”

“Give them a warning,” New York City Councilmember Robert Holden said. “No, they won’t do that.”

CORONAVIRUS: NY Health Dept. | NY Call 1-(888)-364-3065 | NYC Health Dept. | NYC Call 311, Text COVID to 692692 | NJ COVID-19 Info Hub | NJ Call 1-(800)-222-1222 or 211, Text NJCOVID to 898211 | CT Health Dept. | CT Call 211 | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention