New bill aims to protect people from ‘bad actor catering halls’
Dana and Grant Spoltore, both nurses, have treated Covid-19 patients throughout the pandemic and said they knew they’d be unable to host 238 guests and an 11-piece band at an indoor wedding reception at a country club near Atlantic City, where they’d planned to marry in October.
A general manager at the venue, Atlantic City Country Club, had promised in an email on July 31 that they’d be refunded the money they’d prepaid less their deposit if Covid-19 restrictions prevented the wedding and reception from taking place as contracted. But the couple haven’t been refunded their $7,500.
Martell’s Waters Edge, a waterfront venue in Bayville, where Joseph and Natalie Scarpitto planned to hold their wedding and reception in June, won’t refund the more than $10,000 they paid toward their balance even though the venue couldn’t deliver the services promised because of state restrictions that banned large indoor gatherings, the couple said.
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Sydney imposes lockdown on beach suburbs as cluster grows
SYDNEY Around a quarter of a million people in Sydney’s northern beach suburbs were ordered on Saturday into a strict lockdown until midnight Wednesday to contain a coronavirus cluster that officials fear could spread across the city.
Authorities will announced on Sunday whether further restrictions will be imposed on the rest of Sydney, Australia’s most populous city.
“I want to make that clear, to say to greater Sydney, please, please, do not go out tonight or the next few days unless you really have to,” New South Wales state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said at a news conference on Saturday.
The outbreak on Sydney’s northern beaches now totals 39 with two additional cases still under investigation. This up from five only two days ago, but authorities do not know the origin of the virus, which genome testing suggests is a U.S. strain.
Maryland, Virginia donate vaccine doses to Washington, D.C.
WASHINGTON Officials in the District of Columbia are accustomed to being short-changed in different ways.
There’s the long-standing issue of its quest for statehood and proper representation in Congress. And when the $2.2 trillion coronavirus stimulus package was passed by Congress in March, Washington, D.C., was classified as a territory a distinction that cost it $700 million in funding.
But when the latest shortfall hit the local allotment of new Covid-19 vaccine doses, Washington’s neighboring states pitched in to help make up the difference. In a heartening demonstration of interstate collectivism, Maryland and Virginia are each sending 8,000 vaccine doses, more than tripling the amount available for health care workers in the nation’s capital.
D.C. health officials have complained for weeks that the initial allotment formula followed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided Washington with just under 7,000 doses less than one-tenth of what would be needed for local health care workers.
Washington, D.C., bans indoor dining, other activities for three weeks
Indoor dining, museums and libraries will end in the District of Columbia starting next week amid a surge in coronavirus cases, according to an executive order issued Friday by Mayor Muriel Bowser.
The executive order also shuts down a bus service that shuttles passengers around the National Mall. Nonessential businesses are instructed to allow employees to work remotely. Capacity will be limited inside big box stores, food retailers and other essential businesses serving the public.
The restrictions go into effect Wednesday at 10 p.m. and will remain in place until 5 a.m. Jan. 15.
Appeals court shuts down dining, strip clubs in San Diego
A California appeals court Friday overturned a lower court ruling that allowed San Diego County restaurants and strip clubs to stay open despite local and state shutdown orders.
Superior Court Judge Joel Wohlfeil was weighing the clubs’ challenge to county cease-and-desist orders Wednesday when he surprised local leaders by telling the county to back off not only on the clubs but any venues that serve food.
The ruling Wednesday bound the hands of county officials and had multiple eateries quickly setting up tables and setting out menus.
A three-judge appellate panel in San Diego, responding to the state’s emergency application for temporary stay, granted the request Friday, overturning Wohlfeil’s preliminary inunction. An attorney for the clubs, Jason P. Saccuzzo, said by email they plan to request the stay be lifted “so adult entertainment establishments and restaurants can reopen.”
San Diego is part of a Southern California region under state stay-at-home orders that prohibit dining, limit essential retail stores to 20 percent capacity and keeps hair and nail salons closed. Restaurants can still offer delivery and to-go service.
The strip clubs, Cheetahs Gentlemen’s Club and Pacers Showgirls International, challenged earlier county orders to close and stayed open past the state’s Dec. 3 stay-at-home rules because an earlier ruling by Wohlfeil allowed it.