You likely remember the recent scandal involving California Gov. Gavin Newsom going to a fancy indoor birthday dinner for a prominent lobbyist at the French Laundry, violating his own Covid-19 rules and pissing off everyone in doing so. Well, apparently San Francisco Mayor London Breed is about to face her own scandal for doing the exact same thing.
Yep.
The San Francisco Chronicle’s Heather Knight reports that Breed dined with a group of seven others on November 7 at the iconic three-Michelin starred restaurant in Napa — just one night after Newsom’s own little soiree. According to the Chronicle, the dinner was in honor of socialite Gorretti Lo Lui’s 60th birthday and took place in a partially private room inside similar to the one Newsom dined in.
Breed’s spokesman, Jeff Cretan, told the Chronicle it was a “small family birthday dinner” but would not disclose who else attended. He emphasized that Napa allowed indoor dining at the time.
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While true, the state and Breed’s directives throughout the pandemic have “strongly discouraged” social gatherings inside among multiple households that are not in a pod. And the meal would have violated her own rules in San Francisco, where she’s directed restaurants not to seat groups larger than six unless everyone lives together. Just three days after that dinner, Breed completely banned indoor dining in San Francisco, tweeting this:
Stories about politicians saying one thing but doing another around Covid-19 regulations keep pouring in. In Newsom’s case, he attended the French Laundry dinner with 11 others for lobbyist Jason Kinney’s 50th birthday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went to a hair salon in San Francisco while salons were shut down, and San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo attended a Thanksgiving gathering with five other households after telling residents not to.
Cretan did tell the Chronicle that Breed wanted to dine at restaurants during lower-rate cases to support them and that now that cases are up, “she is once again limiting her actions and is encouraging all San Franciscans to do the same.”
Listen, we get it. People make mistakes. People take various rules and safety into consideration during this pandemic and make decisions that feel best for them at that moment. If this were an average person, they’d deserve more slack. But public officials cannot be so cavalier about their choices when so many of their constituents are giving up so much in listening to their orders and trying to do their part.
