Rally in opposition to “shelter-in-place” order

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CRESCENT CITY, Ca. (KIEM)-A group of people displeased with Gavin Newsom’s executive order gathered at the Del Norte County fairgrounds to rally.

They are asking the government to begin opening the county back up for business, now, before it’s too late.

Rhonda Bateman is one of about a hundred Del Norte residents protesting for fairness between big companies and small local business owners.

“I don’t understand why they can let big boxes have hundreds of people in them and not have small businesses doing the same thing,” Bateman.

She says businesses like Walmart and Safeway aren’t doing anything differently except their employees are wearing masks.

“It’s just wrong to tell some businesses they cannot be open and others get to,” she said. “Where are they going to draw the line.”

Dan Shultz organized this protest in hopes the county will soon open to business.

He says the economy is being hit hard, so hard, if businesses wait too long they may never recover.

“This is causing hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, it’s ruining lives,” Shultz.

Shultz says his group’s concerns are yearly lock down orders, some feared attending the rally.

“I’m really happy that 50 to 100 people showed up today,” Shultz. “Most people were scared.” 

Crescent City Police Chief Richard Griffin says there were threats made on social media against this event. Police were on scene to keep the peace and make sure everyone at the rally can express their constitutional right to assemble…on both sides of the issue.

“There was some issue on Facebook apparently. Somebody talked about throwing water balloons. That is specifically illegal,” Griffin said.

 For now the consensus among the protesters who organized this event is, they say there is no reason not to reopen everything.

According to the health department, the two residents who had covid-19 have since recovered and just to mention there were no counter protesters at Tuesday’s rally.