COVID: Santa Clara County Goes After Businesses Refusing to Pay Health Order Violation Fines
SAN JOSE (KPIX) -- Santa Clara County officials are suing a handful of small businesses they claim flouted health orders during the pandemic and are now refusing to pay fines.
The businesses are facing fines that range from just over $13,000 to a whopping $300,000.
Salon owner James Griffiths says Santa Clara County has him on the hook for just over $20,000 for alleged violations. He's accused of ignoring health orders to shut down as a non-essential business, but he is not paying.
"Oh, I'm fighting it all the way. Every step of the way," Griffiths said.
The salon is one of eight businesses the county is pursuing legal action against. Others include Calvary Church, which has amassed almost $3 million in fines.
One coffee house owes almost $14,000. Kelly Ranger's Los Gatos massage studio owes just over $13,000.
"I'm willing to follow laws, but not orders," said Ranger, who is also fighting the fines. She will represent herself in court because three lawyers she contacted wouldn't take the case.
"I'm probably not going to prevail, but I'm not going to go without making some kind of a record of the violations they are committing. They are out of control and they're lawless and there has to be at least somebody who says something," Ranger said.
County officials were not available for comment regarding the fines they are trying to collect, but a spokesman issued a statement which read:
"The county has worked with many businesses to find a reasonable solution and these efforts have been successful with all but a handful of businesses. Most of these fines are uncontested and involve repeat offenders."
The county also says its rules were about life and death and shared a graphic showing Santa Clara County's death rate from COVID. The county suffered just over 2,000 deaths. The total is about half of the state of California's total fatalities, and is two and a half times lower than the U.S. mortality rate per capita as a whole.
Still, those who refuse to pay claim what the county did was an overreach.
"The county will be spending taxpayer money to pursue a small business owner who was really just trying to make a living," Griffiths said.