In the internet shopping age when people can be open 24/7, how do you enforce a particular business being shut down at a certain hour? Just as important, who snitched? Her business is another casualty of the shut down. She’s had too much financial loss and has to move. Death by COVID-19 is faster than death by homelessness and starvation due to lack of income. I thought Democrats wanted to prevent death?
How do you enforce particular store hours? Is this a part of NJ shut down orders? People do Facebook live all the time to sell things.
A subtle way to get back at Trump (supporting small business)
There are so many shady ways to get back at people you don’t agree with. I wonder how well that snitch was taken care of. A little extra in the stimulus, maybe? Business owners can hire people to work after hours.
Video and Facebook are popular ways to sell. Facebook Live is a great sales tool. So Katherine Hermes probably figured she was fine. Video in the COVID age is an acceptable method to talk with others. There was only two people in the room, they could probably socially distance well.
Almost two hours into the video showcasing her products an officer comes in, tells her to shut down. “He comes in and tells me that I can’t be open after 8:00 because of the executive order and to wear a mask on my face,” Hermes said. “He told me they had received ‘a multitude of complaints’ about my store. I asked him who they were from, and he told me he couldn’t reveal that because they were sealed.”
Big difference between Katherine Hermes and eBay
Maybe she doesn’t have the corporate lawyers that a much bigger entity would have. Maybe she doesn’t have the budget to work with extortion.
She also made the mistake of saying what she thought of the shut down and any possible vaccines. “I was defiant, and the police chief was very respectful, and I understand what he’s saying, and he understands what I’m saying,” Hermes said to News12. “It’s a difficult situation for everybody. But we have flattened the curve. The crisis is over.”
No common sense
There was a complaint that a customer was inside the store picking up an order. She’s probably supposed to ship this package out via mail, UPS or Fedex. Because nobody goes inside a store to buy things anymore, or apparently they’re not supposed to.
“I’m closing,” Hermes told News12. “I don’t know that I can be out of here by the end of this month, but I will be out of here by the end of next month. … We can’t take disease[s] away. We can hate them, but we can’t make them go away, and we can’t legislate them away by destroying businesses.”
Katherine, like many others, understands viruses come and go. They’ll mutate and show up next year, just like the normal flu does. You can’t legislate businesses closed unless the Constitution is ripped up and Communism installed.
What is non essential to one person is very essential to the next
It’s not the first time this has happened to her so it makes sense to just not reopen again in a physical storefront. The Bernardsville Farmers’ Market would be reopening so she thought she’d reopen her Country House.
“The next day, I opened my doors, and I was mobbed, but the customers were wearing masks and were keeping 6 feet apart like they’re supposed to,” she explained. “But the police chief came in and shut me down at 3:00. “I asked why the farmers’ market was allowed to do business, with merchants coming in from out of town, but I wasn’t allowed to. I was told it’s because that’s an ‘essential business.’ I pay rent and I’m not allowed to sell in front of my own store. I am essential–essential to my family. I do this because I have obligations in life. I am the only person my children have in their lives. You can’t just let me languish on the vine. I’m backed into a corner here.”
Maybe if she owned a business that was considered essential, she might be allowed to continue. But that would mean remaking everything. That’s not cost or time effective. She’s been trying to keep her business afloat, working over 12 hours per day.
“I told my landlord that I cannot exist like this,” Hermes stressed. “After the webcast last night, I was embarrassed and humiliated. I was in tears. I’m toast, I’m exhausted. I can’t do this anymore.”
The police officer that enforced the shut down called her back and apologized. “He called me today to apologize,” she noted. “He said I was 100 percent in the right.
Attempt at revitalization
When Katherine came to Bernardsville she saw a lot of shuttered shops. Looks like it’s going to stay that way because she’s moving her business into her basement.
“I’m going to become a virtual business. I have a whole art studio in my basement,” she remarked.
I think the entire reaction to this virus has been a knee jerk overreach right from the start. We should never have been cornered into our homes, and the country shut down, and I think we need an amendment to our Constitution as a promise to future generations that it must NEVER happen again! We could have been sheep going to slaughter. It would be too easy for them! All we need to know is what’s going on, and suggestions for the best way to deal with it thus far, liable to change as time goes on. I expect our politicians to inform and protect, not to order us into cowering. And, it’s been largely the demoncrats that have initiated a ‘police state’ like atmosphere. I’m surprised they didn’t put us under Marshall Law! Enough is enough! This has been more than enough!! To all you politicians out the, Let My People Go!!!
I would have told that officer that he is a coward for not following his oath
Hmm – the complaints are ‘sealed’ – so much for being able to face your accusers…………….
So how does she know that there were actually ‘complaints’ – perhaps it was only one disgruntled person – maybe a competitor or an unhappy customer. I doubt we (or the victim) will ever know.
My first reaction to the cop would have been a copy of the Bill of Rights and a list of the Enumerated Powers and told him to come back when he wanted to lose HIS RIGHTS!