LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles leaders on Wednesday approved one of the nation’s strictest vaccine mandates — a sweeping measure that requires the shots for everyone entering bars, restaurants, nail salons, gyms or even a Lakers game.
The City Council voted 11-2 in favor of the ordinance that will require proof of full vaccination starting Nov. 4.
The move came after the council postponed a vote last week to deal with concerns ranging from who could be fined for violations to whether employees could end up in fist-fights when they have to serve as vaccine door monitors.
Some critics charge that a mandate would amount to segregation of those who cannot or refuse to be vaccinated. Others call it unenforceable.
Business trade groups have said the city mandate will sow confusion because Los Angeles County’s own vaccine rules — which apply both in Los Angeles and in surrounding communities — are less sweeping.
However, council members who support the ordinance said it is aimed at reducing the risk of new COVID-19 surges. The nation’s second-most populous city faced a huge rise in infections and hospitalizations last winter and a smaller surge this summer linked to the spread of the highly contagious delta variant.
Mayor Eric Garcetti is expected to sign the ordinance into law. Garcetti expressed his support for a vaccine measure last week, saying: “I don’t want to bury another city employee, police officer, firefighter.”
The ordinance would require people to be fully vaccinated to enter indoor public spaces including shopping malls, restaurants, bars, gyms, sports arenas, museums, spas, nail salons, indoor city facilities and other locations. Current vaccine eligibility includes people age 12 and up.
Negative coronavirus tests within 72 hours of entry to those places would be required for people with religious or medical exemptions for vaccinations.
Council President Nury Martinez has said it is clear that the vaccines work but too many people remain unvaccinated despite widespread availability and door-to-door campaigns to vaccinate more people.
The ordinance came at a time when COVID-19 cases are plunging while political ambitions in Los Angeles are rising — two council members are running for mayor, as is the city attorney who wrote the proposal.
Councilman and mayoral candidate Joe Buscaino voted against the mandate. Last week during a council meeting he challenged the measure as being “clear as mud” regarding enforcement.
“Making a teenager … serve as a bouncer to keep people in or out of a restaurant, and then fining the business for their failure is not the way to go about it,” he said.
Buscaino also noted that the conflict between city’s measure and county’s vaccination mandate, which only covers patrons and workers at indoor bars, wineries, breweries, lounges and nightclubs.
Of the county’s roughly 10 million residents, 78% have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose and 69% are fully vaccinated, according to public health officials.
The county on Tuesday reported 35 new deaths and 964 new cases of COVID-19. Health officials said the county has reported 14 deaths a day, on average, even though deaths and hospitalization figures have plunged by some 50% since late August.
A growing number of places across the U.S., including San Francisco and New York City, are requiring people to show proof of vaccination to enter various types of businesses and venues.
In San Francisco, proof of vaccination for staff and patrons has been required since Aug. 20 in indoor places where food or drink is consumed, where aerobic exercise occurs such as gyms, and where large groups gather such as entertainment venues.
Businesses have complied with the order and officials have not issued any notices of violation or levied any fines, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
San Francisco also has a mandate requiring masks in all indoor businesses but public health officials in the city and in surrounding San Francisco Bay Area communities are expected to announce this week criteria that would allow officials to lift indoor mask mandates.
New York City this summer began requiring proof of vaccination to dine inside restaurants and bars, or to enter certain types of public places, including museums, theaters, gyms, indoor sports arenas and concert halls.
Compliance has been mixed and enforcement purposefully light, with the city favoring initial warnings for violators and fines for repeat offenders.
GOPUSA Editor’s Note: Don’t wait for an email newsletter that never shows up. Email from conservative websites has been hit hard by big tech. Just follow this link and bookmark it when you get to our site. GOPUSA
___
Associated Press writers Robert Jablon in Los Angeles and Olga R. Rodriguez in San Francisco contributed to this report.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
—-
This content is published through a licensing agreement with Acquire Media using its NewsEdge technology.
LA, CA, is about to be sued there are exemptions. I am glad that I don’t have to deal with Californications Stupidity and HYPOCRISY! I am exempt, and I carry not only my exemption for the Vax but the laws that prevent anyone from asking about my health status and the Americans with Disabilities ACT about discrimination! A public business might try to stop my entrance but I will end up owning said business! And all I have to do is call the Police. End of problem. People you need to understand, YOUR rights end, when YOU step upon mine!
You actually think the courts out there will take OUR SIDES over the guvmint?
Yet another city I’ll be inclined to avoid just on principle. If you want to get the vaccine do so, if you don’t don’t. This forcing of people to receive an experimental (it still is no matter what the press says) medical treatment in order to participate in common life activities is an overreach at best. If the city council is so worried about their citizens why have they never instituted these rules for other communicable diseases? Why are they not worried about undocumented people coming to the area who don’t have other vaccines? And, if the vaccine is so great why are they worried about the unvaccinated?
Frankly, I think the unvaccinated might be wise to be worried about the vaccinated putting them at risk. Many, if not most, of those who are vaccinated seem to think that they have some sort of invisible force field around them that will protect them from all possibility of catching COVID. They are running around as if they can’t get it and they can’t spread it…neither of which is true. In fact, the viral load carried by a vaccinated person is the same as an unvaccinated. The main difference is the vaccinated person doesn’t imagine they can get it or spread it and thus isn’t as careful about their actions and activities.
The last time i even WENT TO commiefornia, was in 2010, for my pops funeral.. YOU COULDN’T EVEN PAY me to go back.. LET ALONE to LA itself.
Have to be in the LA area in two weeks. Glad I decided to stay in Santa Monica and not the city. Palm Springs has the same “Show me you papers” rule so I will not go there for dinner despite having a selection of good venues.
Why do you ‘have to go there’??
Why is there never a mention of natural immunity.
Because it interferes with the investments of all these people who own stock in the disease whether it is in CHINA or Moderna or Pfizer and what ever other money trails exist.
“Council President Nury Martinez has said it is clear that the vaccines work but too many people remain unvaccinated despite widespread availability and door-to-door campaigns to vaccinate more people.”
It also may have something to do with the jab related deaths and all the other side effects. I know two people who died within a week of their second dose of a chemical sh*tstorm.
I’m not going to gamble so that lying, money grubbing, murdering clown can make a buck off me.
IF IT worked, we’d not be seeing SO BLOODY MANY “Break through cases”, SO I call her a damn liar…