SoCal Anti-Vaccination Group Protests on Behalf of SF Restaurant Workers

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• It was like a scene from somewhere...not San Francisco: the SF Examiner reports that a crew of protesters gathered outside Mayor London Breed’s house Sunday to oppose the current stay-at-home order, many completely unmasked. Several members of the group sported placards bearing the URL of a prominent SoCal anti-vaccination group, which might be why they were unaware that Breed isn’t responsible for the current shutdown — that’s the call of city and county health officer Tomás Aragón (here’s a memo that proves it). According to KPIX, the “protesters said they’re fighting for the little guys like the cooks who can’t work from home and the low-wage servers who can’t pay their rents.” The day before the protest, SF recorded its most coronavirus cases ever, the Bay Area News Group reports. UCSF professor George Rutherford tells SF Gate that “we get those microclusters of transmission” from “people who come from different households who are not in the same bubble, who mix together around the dinner table without their masks on,” and that “we know there has been outdoor transmission of COVID.” So don’t expect that demonstration to end the outdoor dining shutdown in San Francisco, as according to KRON 4, as severe COVID-19 cases skyrocket, a new, state-mandated shutdown, will likely kick in across the Bay Area within days.
• Even though that outdoor dining ban will likely be a state mandate by the end of the week, several Contra Costa Country restaurants are still spending time and money on a lawsuit against county officials to reopen outdoor dining, the Bay Area News Group reports. But according to Bay City News, county officials are instead mulling stiffer fines for businesses that flout the rules, with penalties as high as $20,000 proposed by one county Supervisor.
• A self-reporting mechanism on SF-based food delivery app Uber Eats means that any business can identify themselves as Black-owned, a loophole that some suggest diverts support from Black-owned businesses to restaurants seeking to profit off pro-equity diners. [Vice]
• Fishmongers Sea Stephanie Fish, which used to sell its hard-to-find wares to restaurants alone, will allow sales to the public at a series of pop-up events. [SF Chronicle]
• San Jose wine shop Joseph George Wines was robbed of nine bottles of Harlan Estate Cabernet this weekend, a score worth as much as $45,000. [ABC 7]
• The commercial Dungeness crab season will kick off in the Bay Area on December 23, which means local crab for Christmas. [Bay Area News Group]
• With Bay Area restaurants shuttered, local biofuel companies that were reliant on their discarded grease are in trouble. [SF Chronicle]
• A Venmo challenge on TikTok ended with a $1,200 tip for an East Bay server. [NBC Bay Area]