Within the past week, Columbus police have dealt with multiple calls involving accusations that employees at businesses have contracted COVID-19 coronavirus, as fear of the virus spreads throughout the community, Police Chief Fred Shelton said.
In one case, Shelton said, employees at the Shell gas station at the intersection of Main Street and Ninth Street posted a sign on the front door claiming employees at another gas station down the street had contracted the virus.
Apparently the feud began when customers would go into the rival gas station to buy lottery tickets, leave and go into the Shell station to check whether they had won anything, Shelton said. An employee or employees at the Shell station, in turn, put up the sign.
Police ordered the employees to take the sign down, but Shelton said no one is facing any charges.
In another case, he said, a woman accused Asian-American employees of another business of having COVID-19 and said that was why the business was closed. However, Shelton said, the operation was among a group of various nonessential businesses ordered closed in an emergency ordinance passed by the Columbus City Council earlier this month.
“That was being racist,” Shelton said. “… We checked it out and there wasn’t (anything) to it.”
While no one was charged in either case, police have cited America’s Finest Haircuts, a barbershop in north Columbus, for violating the new ordinance Friday. Barbershops are among the businesses closed in the emergency ordinance.
“The barbershop had people in there shooting pool,” Shelton said. “They said they hadn’t been cutting hair, but the evidence was in there that they had.”
The business faces a $1,000 fine for violating the emergency ordinance.
America’s Finest Haircuts is the second business to receive a citation, after Church’s Chicken did last week. Under the emergency ordinance, restaurants can only serve customers via takeout, drive-through or delivery and must have 10 or fewer people in the building. However, Church’s had people entering in the main lobby, Shelton previously said.
Police have cited one person for violating a newly enacted 10 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew, Shelton said. The fine for violating curfew — which does not affect people going to or from work, a restaurant, a pharmacy or a grocery store — has been lowered from $1,000 to $300. On Monday, Mayor Robert Smith extended the curfew by five more days.
The City of Starkville also enacted an emergency ordinance earlier this month limiting restaurants to takeout, drive-through or delivery, though the board of aldermen did not enact a curfew or close any businesses. Starkville Police Department Public Information Officer Brandon Lovelady told The Dispatch no restaurants or other businesses have been cited for violating the ordinance.
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Fred Shelton
