Contra Costa County’s breakdown last month in its enforcement of restaurant COVID-19 protocols needlessly endangered lives, left scofflaws flaunting the rules and hung out to dry workers and patrons who had complained.
The county had been a leader in setting safety regulations. But requirements aimed at protecting the public against the deadly pandemic are of little value if violators can ignore them and those who speak up for public health receive no support from government officials. That sort of response serves only to enable future misbehavior.
But perhaps most troubling about the November enforcement collapse in Contra Costa was that top officials were clueless about what had been going on. It wasn’t until Bay Area News Group reporter Shomik Mukherjee started asking questions that county supervisors and their health director learned that inspectors had stopped issuing violation notices, fines or shutdown orders.
Members of the Board of Supervisors made clear on Tuesday that they weren’t pleased. Suddenly, on Wednesday, Health Department inspectors were back in action, doing the job they should have been all along.
To file a complaint about a Contra Costa County restaurant or bar failing to follow COVID-related health orders, call 925-608-5500, email CoCoEH@cchealth.org or complete the online form at https://cchealth.org/eh/file-a-cmplnt/.
That first day, four restaurants were issued notices of violations; a fifth received a $250 fine, the next step in the process; and, most notably, Lumpy’s Diner in Antioch, which had been warned or fined four prior times starting in August for workers failing to wear masks, was suddenly shut down.
Until then, Lumpy’s co-owner Gena Noack had openly refused to comply with the county rules. The restaurant reopened on Thursday after promising to follow the county’s masking and vaccine verification requirements.
It was long overdue. But for the entire month of November, Noack and other restaurant owners across the county had gotten a pass — and needlessly endangered staff and patrons. “We dropped the ball on the health enforcement in November,” county Health Director Anna Roth admits.
Roth, who apparently had been unaware of the enforcement collapse in the department she runs, now blames an increase in complaints compounded by a county inspection system that wasn’t designed or scaled to handle enforcement of COVID-19 rules. Yes, the pandemic has been challenging. But that’s not an excuse for abandoning the job.
The result: Of the 89 cases in November, 65% were resolved after educating the restauranteur about the county rules, according to Health Department data. The other 35% were never followed up on or, if they were, no punishment was meted out. Education is an important first step, but after that there must be consequences for continuing violations.
Until the collapse, Contra Costa County officials had deserved commendation for requiring that restaurant workers wear masks and check to ensure customers had been vaccinated before allowing them inside. Most notably, the county shut down indoor dining at In-N-Out Burger in Pleasant Hill after the company refused to enforce the vaccination verification rules.
It’s disappointing that the state and most Bay Area county health officials are not following the lead of Contra Costa, San Francisco and Berkeley by enacting similar combinations of restaurant masking and vaccine-verification rules.
These are common-sense requirements essential for providing safety and confidence for employees and patrons. Without such protocols, restaurants will continue to face worker shortages, and many customers will stay away, exacerbating the financial struggles of the industry.
The health risk is particularly acute for indoor restaurant dining. People are in close proximity in enclosed areas, often talking and unable to wear masks while eating. It’s a setting ripe for transmission of the coronavirus.
That’s why rules with timely enforcement — starting with education followed by meaningful penalties — are essential.
Unfortunately, even setting aside the November collapse, Contra Costa’s enforcement process has been way too slow. Under the county’s rules, it can take over a month to shut down a business that’s ignoring the regulations. During a pandemic with a deadly virus, that’s unacceptable. County supervisors should require a speeding up of the process.
And those who make complaints deserve to know the outcome — to know that county health inspectors are taking their concerns seriously. But county officials can’t say how many complainants received follow-up calls to advise them of what action was taken. Without that key step, the inspection process will feel to those who speak up like an unwieldy bureaucracy rather than a responsive defender of public health.
Indeed, the county Health Department last month proved to be a bureaucratic quagmire. Roth promises her inspectors will do better. County supervisors must ensure that they do. Lives depend on it.
