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VICTORY: Family Restaurant Found Not Guilty for Reopening in Defiance of Governor’s Order

Charlie Kirk Staff

10/20/2020

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VICTORY: Family Restaurant Found Not Guilty for Reopening in Defiance of Governor’s Order

A Pennsylvania restaurant has been found not guilty of violating the governor’s restrictions after reopening in the midst of the state’s COVID shutdown.

A Taste of Sicily in Lebanon County, PA reopened its doors in May after having been closed for two months. The restaurant owners, siblings Michael Mangano and Christine Wartluft left it up to customers whether they wanted to socially distance or wear a mask.

The restaurant was hit with nearly $10,000 in state citations for reopening and fought against Democrat Governor Tom Wolf’s COVID-19 restrictions for months.

The Daily Caller reports:

Wolf had fixated his attention on Lebanon County and the Republican leadership supporting small businesses like Taste of Sicily that defied state orders. Wolf decided to withhold $13 million in funding from the county on July 17, leaving it as the only county in the state to have been cut off from the $625 million package of coronavirus relief funds. Wolf blamed the Republican-controlled Board of Commissioners, according to WPXI.

“The mask mandate, the plexiglass, the social distancing, all of those things that the governor and [Secretary of Health Rachel] Levine were implementing are not an enforceable citation,” Mangano tells the Caller. “In other words, they can’t legally enforce that. This says that any fine that you get from the state is legally non-enforceable.”

Mangano has a message for other business owners who are facing government citations in the midst of the coronavirus: “When you get these fines from these agents do not pay them. Plead not guilty, and take them to court,” he said. “As you can see, we won because they had no legal right to fine us for those mandates and guidelines the governor and Levine implemented.”

“You have to stick together and go to court.”

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Charlie Kirk is the Founder and President of Turning Point USA, a national student movement dedicated to empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets and limited government.

Charlie is also the host of “The Charlie Kirk Show” podcast, which regularly ranks among the top-10 news shows on Apple podcast news charts, and is the host of the nationally syndicated daily radio show on the Salem Radio Network live from 12 - 3 PM ET.
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