Los Angeles County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl dined at one of her “favorite” restaurants just hours after she voted to prohibit outdoor dining for three weeks due to fears of COVID-19 spread.
While Kuehl claimed during multiple Board of Supervisors meetings that restaurant dining is “a most dangerous situation” and voted to suspend it on Tuesday, her spokesperson admitted to FOX 11 that the 79-year-old “did dine al fresco at Il Forno on the very last day it was permissible.”
“She loves Il Forno, has been saddened to see it, like so many restaurants, suffer from a decline in revenue,” the spokesperson said. “She ate there, taking appropriate precautions, and sadly will not dine there again until our Public Health Orders permit.”
Those public health orders passed by a mere 3-2 margin after a “contentious and emotional” discussion, with supervisors Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn voting against the measure. They also wrote a motion calling for reconsideration.
“The public doesn’t think that that recommendation is right, and they don’t think it’s going to work, and they are really losing faith and trust in the decisions that we’re making,” Hahn said.
Kuehl, however, took a different approach, claiming that servers at restaurants were at risk because of the hours of their work.
“This is a serious health emergency and we must take it seriously,” Kuehl said.
“The servers are not protected from us, and they’re not protected from their other tables that they’re serving at that particular time, plus all the hours in which they’re working,” she added.
Kuehl is a former child actress who played the character of Zelda on the television series, “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.”
Trivia note:
LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who ate at a restaurant after voting to ban the practice, was Zelda on Dobie Gillis.— Debra J. Saunders (@debrajsaunders) December 1, 2020
Kuehl joins the ranks of other government officials who seem to not be practicing what they preach when it comes to COVID-19 mandates. Last month, Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and two top officials with the California Medical Association were exposed for violating Newsom’s own COVID-19 orders by dining at a lavish French restaurant in Napa.
EXCLUSIVE: We've obtained photos of Governor Gavin Newsom at the Napa dinner party he's in hot water over. The photos call into question just how outdoors the dinner was. A witness who took photos tells us his group was so loud, the sliding doors had to be closed. 10pm on @FOXLA pic.twitter.com/gtOVEwa864
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) November 18, 2020
Other California and Washington lawmakers were caught planning to attend a four-day legislative conference in Hawaii after other state leaders imposed travel and Thanksgiving gathering restrictions.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot recently imposed a citywide stay-at-home order despite attending “a massive street rally celebrating Biden’s apparent victory, where a mask-less Lightfoot addressed the crowd through a bullhorn.”
