San Francisco Mayor London Breed is getting a lot of heat this week as she solidified her position among other political elites like Gavin Newsom, Nancy Pelosi, and Marc Levine, who’ve all infamously ignored the COVID rules they’ve imposed on the masses.
“I wasn’t thinking about a mask, I was thinking about having a good time,” she told reporters.
I rolled my eyes at her hypocrisy and laughed at her attempt to redirect the media’s attention away from her mask-less soiree and instead on the fact that the R&B group Tony! Toni! Toné! had reunited for the performance at the Tenderloin’s Black Cat. And, I was more than a little angry that a woman who has been a key factor in San Francisco’s strict and ongoing COVID regulations thinks she can ignore the rules as she pleases.
But then, I had to admit: London Breed may be hypocritical, she may even be corrupt for forcing her subjects to abide by different rules than she herself is willing to live by. But, she’s also logical.
Breed explained she had taken her own safety precautions, including getting vaccinated, and doesn’t need the government telling her how to be safe. Her own self-interest in not getting COVID leads her to make healthy choices, and her desire to see the city and its businesses recover is something she weighs when deciding where to go.
“We don’t need the fun police to come in and try to micromanage and tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing,” Breed explained. “We know what we need to do to protect ourselves.”
No government-established “fun police” could care more about her own health and safety than she does. An arbitrary rule that has more to do with virtue signaling than safety wasn’t going to keep her down when she started “feeling the spirit.” The mayor went on to joke at the ridiculous guidance by the Newsom Administration that a person only remove their mask when actively sipping or chewing, returning it between bites.
“No, I’m not going to sip and put my mask on. Sip and put my mask on. Sip and put my mask on. Eat and put my mask on,” she said, noting that even the reporter who questioned her in the club had apparently felt comfortable enough to forgo a face covering.
More important than talking about her actions is getting out into the city and supporting businesses and musicians, Breed said.
“I would hope that people would spend more time enjoying San Francisco,” she said. “Support our nightlife venues, support our restaurants, go out and enjoy yourself. Make sure you are vaccinated because of the requirement. But don’t feel as though you need to be micromanaged about mask wearing.”
Breed has made a strong case for Californians, who reside in the state with the country’s lowest positivity rate, to return to pre-pandemic normalcy. But she can’t tell people to go out and enjoy the city the way she has without making it legal for them to do so.
Mayor Breed is right to want her city to return to normalcy, but that won’t happen through one interview with the media. If Breed truly believes that all people — not just elites — are capable of making their own health decisions, she needs to take action and defund the fun police, of which she’s chief.
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The California Policy Center promotes prosperity for all Californians through limited government and individual liberty.
