A bar and restaurant owner in Los Angeles has gone viral in a video posted to social media that shows a movie studio was allowed to set up an outdoor dining area just yards from her now shut down business, which she calls a slap in her face by Mayor Eric Garcetti and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“I’m losing everything. Everything I own is being taken away from me, and they set up a movie company right next to my outdoor patio,” says Angela Marsden, owner of the Pineapple Hill Grill & Saloon in the video, as she points out the difference between her outdoor dining area and that of the studio.
“Look at this. Tell me that this is dangerous,” she says pointing at her patio, before turning to show the studio’s set-up. “But right next to me, as a slap in my face, that’s safe. This is safe? Fifty feet away?”
In Los Angeles County, video and music production has been deemed “essential.”
“Mayor Garcetti and Gavin Newsom is responsible for every single person that doesn’t have unemployment, that does not have a job, and all the businesses that are going under,” the emotional business owner says in the clip, her voice cracking. “We need your help! We need somebody to do something about this!”
The video has gone viral after being shared on Twitter, and retweeted and re-shared both by influential conservative accounts as well as in news stories from local stations.
L.A.’s ABC7 aired the video, calling it “gut-wrenching” and interviewed Marsden about it on Friday night.
Marsden has owned the restaurant for 10 years. She says she spent around $80,000 setting up an outdoor dining area and making changes to meet L.A. County’s health requirements, but she’s run out of loan money and can’t afford to offer takeout, so for now, she’s closing.
Marsden says she went to the restaurant to pay her staff and was in shock when she saw the production tents.
“The day they come to get their last paycheck, you punch me in the face and say that this is dangerous. Right here is dangerous. But just walk over there and eat,” Marsden told Eyewitness News.
Marsden and supporters are planning to hold a protest outside the home of L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl over the apparent huge disparity in how small businesses and big movie companies are being treated.
As this video makes its way across computer and phone screens around the world, there continue to be more and more examples of office holders and other members of the social elite who advocate for tough restrictions violating or making self-exceptions to those restrictions for their own comfort or benefit.
“They have not given us money and they have shut us down. We cannot survive, my staff cannot survive,” Marsden says in the video. Congress, meanwhile, has not passed another stimulus, though Democrats have become more willing to deal with Republican demands now that the election is over and vaccines are within reach.
*story by MEDIAite