Lawsuit targets Charlie Baker’s slow reopening; ‘Do Your Job!’ owners urge

Some businesses hungry to open up are backing a lawsuit calling Gov. Charlie Baker’s coronavirus executive order shutting them down unconstitutional — with a North End restaurant owner saying she may open up early anyway.

The lawsuit, filed in Worcester Superior Court, argues Baker is “using the wrong law” to enforce pandemic safer-at-home standards, said attorney Michael DeGrandis of the D.C.-based the New Civil Liberties Alliance, which has filed the legal challenge.

“What started as a health crisis has become one of an economic crisis, a social crisis and now a constitutional crisis,” DeGrandis said in a Zoom session hosted by the MassFiscal Alliance Monday to outline the lawsuit.

“We hope to get the court to declare the governor’s state of emergency invalid,” he added, “and therefore his orders are invalid.”

DeGrandis said the state Legislature is supposed to be taking the lead, but it isn’t. He said his group is looking to “fast-track” a court decision in hopes that local boards of health will be tasked with deciding to open the economy as they see fit.

Baker announced Monday more plans to reopen the economy, but DeGrandis added the lawsuit will still be pushed to guard against any future decision to halt the reopening if coronavirus cases flare up.

The suit has won the support of business owners who said Monday they are in dire need of cash flow.

North End restaurant owner Carla Agrippino-Gomes said others in the neighborhood may open up this Friday — up to 20 restaurants, she added — because they just can’t wait any longer.

“We lost out on the Marathon, on graduations, on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July,” she said. “Why can’t we open our businesses? … There was no social distancing among the protesters Sunday night?

“We’re tired of being complacent,” she added. “We’re all suffering. ‘Do your job!’ to quote the great coach of the New England Patriots … we are going to take matters into out own hands.”

MassFiscal Alliance spokesman Paul Diego Craney said Baker’s executive orders are “harming countless businesses while infringing on the civil rights of almost everyone.”

The lawsuit argues Baker is overstepping his authority, with DeGrandis adding the “founders thought of these issues” — even if and when a pandemic hit.

“We have to make sure he doesn’t do this again,” he added. “I don’t think the Legislature likes to make tough decisions. They are slow-walking this … and letting the governor be out in front.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/2ZXPHDf