Minnesota restaurant (and bar?) defies shutdown orders [View all]

[progree]

Havens Garden in Lynd, Minnesota (in the low populated southwest part of the state).

Governor Walz ordered partial shutdown of bars/restaurants on effective November 13 (10 pm closing times and the physical bars themselves to be closed - people can still be served food and alcohol who are seated at tables).

And then he ordered all bars and restaurants closed period effective Saturday November 21 (2 weeks ago).

But they've defied all that. Have gotten their food license suspended by Southwest Health and Human Services Department on November 27, and a letter from Attorney General Keith Ellison on November 23, but no matter. They haven't had a liquor license since October 2019, but no matter, They remain open and maybe still serves alcohol (I can't find anything in their self-presentation about alcohol, but one recent review had "classic cocktails" ).

They've become a darling of the right wing, been on Fox, and a lot of right-wing kooks on their Facebook page, but fortunately there's some pushback.

https://www.facebook.com/havensgardenmn

This article from December 4:
https://www.marshallindependent.com/news/local-news/2020/12/they-want-me-to-comply/

Minnesota ranked number one in the U.S. Saturday morning with the highest per capita number of new cases, 7 day moving average (I just looked at it now and Minnesota is #2 after Rhode Island at the moment).

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

and Lyon County, where this restaurant is located, is even worse in that metric (148 per 100k people per day) than the Minnesota average (104 per 100k people per day).