I found this picture on FB last night, this is a line outside a popular bar in DTSF. While the restrictions are not set to lift until Tuesday, I have noticed many drinking establishments have chosen to just ignore them anyway. And why not? There are no leaders or people in authority in charge in this town. The worst part about this pandemic isn’t scenes like this, it is the total lack of leadership by our elected officials. Why implement half-baked rules with no real teeth if people are just going to ignore them anyway?
Paul seems to think he is a part-time glorified city mayor instead of a city administrator. Wish he was, would save us a lot of money and heartache. Maybe it is time we do this?
Smithfield Foods has been trying to scare us away from restricting its activities at its coronavirus-riddled Sioux Falls plant by warning that any disruption of its vital activities could lead to a meat shortage. Yet even as they lobbied for an executive order from the White House to immunize their facilities from state shutdown orders, Smithfield and other mega-meatmongers have been shipping more pork to China:
About a month ago I got a tip from a reader that a certain cold storage warehouse in Sioux Falls had about 9 months worth of Smithfield product stacked up in the facility ‘awaiting shipment’. I asked this person why don’t they just distribute it already in the United States, especially with some food shortages. His answer, “The labels are in Mandarin. It’s headed to China but are struggling to get it shipped.”
So while I understand supplying food to Americans as essential, I’m not certain Americans risking their lives to pack food for China is essential. It reminds me of the XL pipeline that ships oil from Canada through the US to be put on tankers in the Gulf that go to China.
And we wonder why some of us ‘vilify’ the pork packer.
Notice in the video the Mayor said he will not being going out to eat. Good choice. But what I don’t understand is if this Mayor and City Council gave a green light to the rest of the city to reopen, why not the city buildings?
I will give you my best theory. They are using the citizens of Sioux Falls as Guinea pigs. Basically if this explodes over the next two weeks the city employees who work with the public will not be exposed, and likely not return on May 18. While I think it is a good idea for them to not return during the middle of peak why is it okay for the rest of us?
There seems to be a bit of hypocrisy going on here. You tell the people who receive their salaries from the tax payers, you don’t have to make a choice, you get to stay home, but you force the very people who pay those wages to make a difficult decision? Either go back to work, or lose my unemployment benefits, either way, I really don’t get to make a choice.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander Mayor. If you think it is okay to reopen hospitality and service industries in Sioux Falls why not direct the city employees back to the office? The Minnehaha Treasurer’s office has been operating this whole time.
I also think he fears what the repercussions would be if a city employee gets seriously ill or even dies. If he is thinking those things about his employees, why doesn’t he have the same fears for private employees?
It really shows who the mayor thinks really counts, and it’s not the people paying his wages.
UPDATE: I knew this was not going to work very well and be a nightmare for hospitality workers, I found this comment on FB from a bartender at a popular bar in DTSF;
I just worked my first shift and the guidelines they are having us follow are nearly impossible to maintain. It is so dumb to have a bar open up and expect us to make sure these drunk people don’t gather at a table with more than 6 people and making sure they stand 6 ft apart while serving them alcohol. Seriously why?! It just more reason for our guest to call us assholes because we have to tell them “you can’t stand next to your friend we have to enforce social distancing“.
People circulate at a bar and no matter how much we try to table serve they want to come to the rail. If more people come out I don’t know how we will ever be able to manage that even with a full staff. Thanks Crusty Gnome
Making this post for anyone who is curious how the first day of opening a popular downtown bar was like.
