Small business owner sues governor over lockdown
The owner of a small business in Alabama is suing Governor Kay Ivey and State Health Director Scott Harris for a violation of power when imposing a COVID-19 lockdown.
As reported by The Epoch Times, Saranne Riccio opened Uncorked Wine Shop & Tasting Room in 2018. The business made 70% of its gross profit from foot traffic that came for wine tasting, and the shop was getting good reviews.
But in March 2020, Governor Kay Ivey ordered a lockdown, forcing all “non-essential businesses” to close, and Uncorked’s foot traffic stopped.
Ivey eventually relaxed the lockdown order, but still held small businesses in a death grip of restrictions including capacity limits and social distancing until April 2020.
Matt Clark, an attorney with the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty (ACLL) who is representing Riccio, says that the business simply could not recover.
“With all the restrictions gone, she was still left trying to figure out how to make up for all the money she lost,” Clark said. “She had to close later in 2021, and she just narrowly escaped bankruptcy.”
Now, Clark is suing Ivey and Harris on behalf of Riccio for a violation of power.
“Our big concern is that two executive branch officials—the governor and the state health director—got to make all the rules for about a year without any input from the legislature,” Clark told The Epoch Times. “It’s the legislative branch that has the power to make laws, and the executive branch has the power to carry them out.”
In fact, the lawsuit alleges that Ivey dismissed legislation that would have allowed representatives to have a say in COVID restrictions, saying, “In an emergency, you don’t need a herd of turtles gathering to make an emergency decision.”
Ivey was also sued by pastors in 2020 for locking down places of worship, but the case was dismissed.
Growing scientific evidence shows that the pandemic restrictions were ill-founded, particularly lockdowns. Many politicians appear to have known this, violating their own restrictions repeatedly with no apparent health concerns.
But despite having imposed these ill-founded restrictions, and despite scientific evidence showing that those restrictions were ill-founded, many politicians and health experts are not facing any blowback, even as individuals and businesses continue to reel from devastating consequences.
As reported by Frontline News, the pandemic's lockdowns caused an increase in poverty and domestic violence, less education, and higher unemployment, according to a study from Johns Hopkins University. In the end, the lockdowns had little to no effect on COVID-19 deaths.
“While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted,” the study found. “In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”
The lockdowns also caused a 60% increase in the number of psychiatric patients in Israel, according to another study.
That study also shows that during lockdowns, the number of obese patients increased 8%, the number of smoking patients went up 7%, the number of patients suffering from high blood pressure increased 6%, and the number of patients with cardiovascular diseases jumped 14%.
According to another report, experts are warning of a “psychiatric pandemic” among children and adolescents due to lockdowns that were imposed.
Frontline News previously reported on Dr. Ashish Jha, a fervent proponent of lockdowns who was recently tapped as Biden’s new COVID commissar. Jha has advocated masking children throughout the entire pandemic and was still pushing for capacity limits indoors as recently as January 31st, 2022.
When Frontline News asked Jha to provide the data on which he based his advocacy for lockdowns, he did not respond.
Prof. Galia Rahav, Israel’s answer to Ashish Jha, advised the Israel government to impose stricter and longer lockdowns throughout the pandemic and pushed relentlessly for child vaccinations.
Frontline News contacted Rahav as well to provide the scientific data that suggested lockdowns would be effective. She, too, did not respond.
Ronit Calderon-Margalit, a professor of epidemiology at Hebrew University, also advised the Israel government on lockdowns, considering them to be “useful”.
Lockdowns “have been very very useful in reducing morbidity and mortality in the first two rounds,” said Calderon-Margalit, according to NBC News.
Frontline News reached out to Calderon-Margalit for her response to the above study showing that lockdowns were not useful at all in curbing mortality or morbidity, and to request a copy of her contradictory data, which she did not provide.
