The two bars in St. Louis that were forced to shutter by court order completed their two-week closure Monday Nov. 30.
Judge Christopher McGraugh had denied a temporary restraining order The Wheelhouse and Start Bar requested as part of their lawsuit against the city's health department over the forced closure of their operations for allegedly violating public health orders aimed at slowing the spread of the coronavirus.
“The court finds that plaintiffs have failed to meet their burden,” Judge Christopher McGraugh wrote in his opinion. “The court finds that plaintiffs have presented no evidence that would support a finding that immediate and irreparable injury loss or damage will result in the absence of relief. The sole support in the record for such a finding are conclusory statements.”
As previously reported by BizJournals, Wheelhouse and Start Bar owners sued the City of St. Louis in the 22nd Judicial Circuit after they were allegedly issued two-week closure orders by the Health Director Fredrick Echols without due process or any correspondence other than the shutdown notice.
“Due process would have given us the opportunity to show that his evidence was inaccurate, so much so that multiple photos weren’t even of Wheelhouse or Start Bar,” the owners stated on Instagram. “It is our constitutional right to a fair due process. Our industries (sic) right. It is all of your constitutional rights as Americans. We are fighting for all of our rights and freedoms by filing this.”
The notice ordering a shutdown was allegedly issued after images surfaced showing patrons at the watering holes not following public health orders, which require masks, according to media reports.
“The mechanisms that governments have been using over the last 10 months go well beyond what they should have the authority to do,” Freedom Center of Missouri Director of Litigation Dave Roland said. “The fact of the matter is a lot of courts are upholding these and they can justify upholding a lot of these restrictions based on the precedents that are currently out there but I don't think that they have to rule in favor of the government.”
Roland told the St. Louis Record that there is enough that is novel in the government’s pandemic approach with which the court could have ruled differently.
“Based on history, I believe we're dealing with a bridge too far but, at the same time, I'm not going to fault a judge who looks at the precedent and thinks that it makes sense,” he said. “The courts have also made it absolutely clear that, even in a time of an emergency or a pandemic, the government still has certain principles that it must abide by. For example, equal protection of the law.”