Business owners protest to open Illinois’ economy amid COVID-19 pandemic

Effingham Daily News ^ | April 27, 2020 | Greg Bishop

[PBRCat]

Protests outside the Illinois State Capitol drew several dozen people from around the state. Some were business owners affected by Pritzker’s stay-home order that’s been in effect since March 21.

Those orders lead to more than 700,000 Illinoisans filing for unemployment benefits since the beginning of March.

Ashley McLemore from Dixon traveled to Springfield to protest the orders and to urge the state’s economy to reopen. She said they had to close their music teaching business.

“The day that we closed, we had ten instructors and 85 students and about 90 percent of those students were coming for music therapy,” McLemore said. “And, yeah, we’re done. We’re officially closed.”

Yoder’s Kitchen owner Anna Herschberger in Douglas County also was in Springfield Sunday protesting.

“We are doing carryout, but obviously our business is down by 85 percent,” Herschberger said. “I have 110 employees and I can only employ six at a time, so that’s really difficult.”

Some sheriffs around Illinois have said they won’t enforce the governor’s stay-at-home order, something the governor said will lead to people getting sick.

Herschberger said “that’s great” that her sheriff in Douglas County said he won’t enforce the order and she hopes to fully reopen soon.

“The sheriff is going to let people get sick and there are going to be people who end up in the hospital and maybe even people in ICUs and on ventilators,” Pritzker said.

Tazewell County Sheriff Jeff Lower told the Peoria Journal Star Saturday he is not going to enforce the order because it’s not a law.

[Flick Lives]

“The sheriff is going to let people get sick and there are going to be people who end up in the hospital and maybe even people in ICUs and on ventilators,” Pritzker said.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis

[elpadre]

and knowing that the US taxpayers are paying all costs related to the caronavirus pandemic, I am confident the hospitals are jacking up expenses on each patient to the max.

[elpadre]

sorry - posted on wrong thread