In addition to our normal news coverage, What Now Atlanta is tracking ways Atlanta’s businesses are adapting to the novel coronavirus and the challenges it brings to brick-and-mortars.
Atlanta is reverting back to Phase I of the City’s five-phase reopening plan, a spokesperson for the Mayor’s office confirmed in an email to What Now Atlanta (WNA) Friday.
Under Phase 1, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is asking citizens to stay at home and for non-essential businesses to temporarily close again with the exception of curbside services.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp has fully reopened the state and has made no plans to revisit a lockdown or ask non-essential businesses to close down again, calling Bottoms’ guidelines “confusing” Friday.
“Mayor Bottoms’ action today is merely guidance—both non-binding and legally unenforceable,” Kemp’s office said in a press release Friday. “As clearly stated in the Governor’s executive order, no local action can be more or less restrictive, and that rule applies statewide. Once again, if the Mayor actually wants to flatten the curve in Atlanta, she should start enforcing state restrictions, which she has failed to do. We ask citizens and businesses alike to comply with the terms of the Governor’s order, which was crafted in conjunction with state public health officials. These common-sense measures will help protect the lives and livelihoods of all Georgians.”
However, the mask ordinance Mayor Bottoms issued on Wednesday is enforceable, the spokesperson for the Mayor’s office said.
Atlanta up until recently had only been in Phase II (or “easing”) of the City’s voluntary phases.
[Editor’s note: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is rapidly evolving as is its effect on Atlanta, and the City’s businesses and its residents. Click here for What Now Atlanta’s ongoing coverage of the crisis. For guidance and updates on the pandemic, please visit the C.D.C. website.]
5 Responses
I thought KLB said Phase One was voluntary.
This guy is just a testosterne-poisioned control freak.
He didn’t sue any other cities in GA that had similar guidelines.
And from my understanding he didn’t sue the COA, he sued KLB, and the City Council.
What a d!ck…
It seems he might have a problem with (Black) women in charge…
Oh hush that’s bogus and assumptive to say the least. This has nothing to do with being a woman of color nor if he has a problem with the later. KLB ( as you all call her) was going to literally break the small business! Which would have put thousands out of work creating a ripple affect from there. So hush! You can’t go backwards to phase 1 and force mask wearing in public ( which doesn’t stop or curve a “virus”). There is something else going on here and the Governor is standing up against it for ALL small business owners of ALL colors again stop trying to play the race card this would have messed everyone up that owns a small business .
Oh please, you told me to hush the last time I mentioned this.
Read the article, the reopening rollback was voluntary. KLB was not shutting small businesses down.
She was trying to make masks mandatory in public spaces (grocery stores etc). What’s the big deal with that?
Kemp didn’t sue the Mayors of Athens and Savannah, which made similar requirements.
Race aside, Kemp is the shake boy for Pence/Trump. And we know how those two think about women. One likes to grab them by the puzzy, and the other calls his wife Mother.
Kemp’s lawsuit was a power play– it’s not about the concern for anybody’s health or small business.
Granted, Kemp wants to keep the Georgia financial engine running, but I think the Mayor and the rest of us want to do that as well– safely.
Kemp’s a big southern macho man wannabe who doesn’t like a woman that appears to override his authority (remember his campaign ads with his guns and pick-em up truck?).
KLB has the balls Kemp wishes he had.
Dingus-ery