A local business has been acquitted of allegedly violating the state’s restaurant closure order in December.
JJ’s Saloon, owned by Bob Skaggs, was found not guilty Thursday in a hearing before District Judge Rich Luther.
“I think Judge Luther ruled very fairly. There was no basis in law for the closure notice we received,” Skaggs said.
Skaggs was represented by Eric Winter of Prince Law Firm, located in Southern Pennsylvania.
When contacted Thursday, Winter stated, “My client was found not guilty. It was the right outcome. It shows the enforcement system that the governor and secretary of health have tried to put in place is defective. That is all there is to it.”
He explained that, as with any trial dealing with an order, there is a requirement to prove the basis for the citation.
“In this case, they were trying to base it on a Department of Health order. (The code enforcement officer) was unable to authenticate that order. The judge found that was a fatal defect in the case and found my client not guilty,” he stated.
The case began with an order, issued by Bradford Health Director Mike Cleveland, to close the establishment, citing violation of the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s targeted Mitigation order.
The order was the latest — and most contested — in a slew of directives issued by Gov. Tom Wolf and then Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Rachel Levine since March of 2020. The order required restaurants to cease all indoor dining for a three-week period around the holidays, while takeout and delivery were permitted to continue.
For Skaggs, the issue was trying to make a living and be able to pay his employees while navigating the challenging world of a global pandemic. The new building for JJ’s opened July 5, 2020, and employees followed all mandates in place at that time. When the directive to close indoor dining in December came out, it seemed excessive.
“We felt it was illegal. It was not a law; it never went through the legislature,” Skaggs said. He explained that he and his employees are simply trying to make a living and have no intention to put customers or themselves at risk.
“We are very responsible people trying to make a living. If we had an outbreak in here, we would close, disinfect and make sure everything was safe,” Skaggs said.
For local officials, the enforcement of the directives issued by state officials was far from a clear-cut process.
“This is uncharted territory. Typically, we are used to dealing with food-related issues. Food code is spelled out. This was something different,” Cleveland said. “There is a section of food code that says (businesses) have to comply with directives from the Department of Health. We were more or less told to tie the state orders into that section of the food code and that is how that would be enforced. This has never been done before.”
Cleveland explained that typically, the restaurant inspections are handled by the Department of Agriculture. In this case, the city received notification that JJ’s was operating in violation of the order. That had been confirmed.
“In an attempt to be reasonable, every time we receive a COVID-related complaint we did our best to educate what the business needed to do to be compliant. We did a followup and they were still in violation, which resulted in a citation being issued,” Cleveland said. “They were violating the governor’s order, the secretary of health’s order.”
Ultimately, the not-guilty verdict was issued due to a lack of supporting paperwork provided by the city health department in court. Cleveland explained that, since the original shutdown order in March of 2020, efforts have been made to determine the steps for enforcement. City officials reached out to both the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture and the Liquor Control Board in Erie for clarity. Both agencies responded by saying they were not enforcing the orders because they had not been given the tools needed to do so.
“It was very confusing, it has not been a fun process at all. We are doing the very best we can, and we are also trying to be as reasonable as we can with business owners,” Cleveland said. “We are trying to do as much education as possible, so we don’t have to get to the point where we have to enforce the orders. We are here to help (business owners).”
A similar citation against the New Keystone was withdrawn Thursday. Cleveland explained the withdrawal was a result of the verdict against JJ’s Saloon, as both establishments were cited for the same reason.
