No, that wasn’t a typo in the title suggesting the city has banned public defecation. (They wouldn’t do that anyway. California doesn’t enforce “quality of life crimes.”) Manhattan Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles, begins the process of removing all chairs, benches and tables from public property. Yes, Manhattan Beach has banned “sitting in public” as of today. Seats will remain in stock “until further notice”. As if you needed me to tell you, this is apparently done to combat the spread of the dreaded new coronavirus. (NY Post)
A city near Los Angeles is closing outdoor seating on public property starting Sunday night amid a spike in COVID-19 cases in the county.
The city, Manhattan Beach, is located along the southern California coast, approximately 20 miles southwest of downtown Los Angeles.
Starting at 10 p.m. Sunday, tables and chairs for outdoor seating will be removed until further notice, the city said.
The announcement comes after the city announced on Saturday that COVID-19 cases – currently at 821 – had nearly doubled since November 1.
The mayor of the city urges people to stay at home except for “work, essentials and exercise outside. The majority of people exercising outdoors walk or run. When they’re done, they might want to sit down for a bit and rest, right?
How dangerous does the mayor think sitting is in terms of transmitting the virus? If the park benches are at least six feet long, couldn’t you just put markers on them indicating where people can sit while maintaining mandatory social separation? (Assuming they’re too stupid to figure this out on their own.) The same could be done for the benches on the picnic tables. If there are individual public seats within six feet of each other, you can bag some of them to make sure the minimum distance is met.
Instead, she’ll send a group of workers all over the city’s public spaces to dig and tear up all the seats, transport them, and find a place to put them away. Then at some point, they’ll have to pay the same people to go out and relocate them all. Not exactly an efficient use of resources, is it?
But all of these observations relate only to the logistics of the order rather than the underlying absurdity of the whole idea. Your municipal government will actually ban meeting? What if people just choose to stand? And what about partially disabled residents? They will have even less motivation to go out and exercise if they cannot rest comfortably when they need to.
Hey, here’s an idea for you. The virus is spread through the air, usually when people cough or sneeze. What if you forbade coughing and sneezing in public? This would greatly reduce the transmission of the virus. Or, better yet, simply forbid breathing. If no one expires, no one else will catch COVID!
Huh. Maybe I should have run for town hall in Manhattan Beach. I never realized I was such an effective problem solver. I would be a natural!
