No, it was not a typo in the title indicating that the city banned public defecation. (They will not do that anyway. California does not perpetuate ‘life crimes’.) Manhattan Beach, a suburb of Los Angeles, is beginning the process of removing all the chairs, benches and tables from public property. Yes, Manhattan Beach has banned ‘sitting in public’ from today. The seat will be stored until further notice. As if you had to tell me, this is apparently being done to curb the spread of the dreaded new coronavirus. (NY Post)
A city near Los Angeles is closing seats outside on public property from Sunday night amid an increase in COVID-19 cases in the country.
The city, Manhattan Beach, is located off the coast of Southern California, about 20 miles southwest of Los Angeles.
Sunday at 10 p.m., tables and chairs in outdoor seating will be removed until further notice, the city said.
The announcement comes after the city announced on Saturday that COVID-19 cases – currently at 821 – have almost doubled since November 1.
The mayor of the city calls on people to stay at home except for “work, necessities and go outdoors for exercise. The majority of people who exercise, walk or run outdoors. When they are done, they might want to sit down and rest a bit, would you not think?
Exactly how dangerous does the mayor think to put in terms of transmitting the virus? If the park benches are at least six feet long, can you not just place markers on them to indicate where people can sit while still maintaining the mandatory social distance separation? (If I assume they’re too stupid to figure it out themselves.) The same can be done for the benches on picnic tables. If there are individual public seats less than six feet apart, you can put a bag over some of them to ensure the minimum distance is met.
Instead, she’s going to send a bunch of workers all over the city’s public spaces to dig out all the seats and tear them apart and look away and look for a place to store them. Then at some point they will have to pay the same people to go out and reinstall everyone. Isn’t this exactly an efficient use of resources?
But all these observations are only about the logistics of the order instead of the underlying absurdity of the whole idea. Your municipal government is actually going to ban sit? What if people simply choose to stand around instead? And what about residents who are partially disabled? They have even less motivation to go out and exercise when they can not rest comfortably when they need to.
Hi, here’s an idea for you. The virus is transmitted through the air, usually when people cough or sneeze. How about you just ban coughing and sneezing in public? This will reduce the transmission of the virus. Or, better yet, just forbid breathing. If no one exhales, no one else will catch COVID!
Huh. Maybe I should have elected myself mayor of Manhattan Beach. I never realized I was such an effective problem solver. I will be natural!
