If Merced and Valley law enforcement aren’t enforcing COVID-19 state curfew, is anyone?

State alcohol officials say they will be enforcing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s curfew in Fresno and other parts of the central San Joaquin Valley, where municipalities have told their law enforcement not to.

Leaders in Merced, Fresno, Kings and Tulare have told law enforcement to stick to their normal patrol and enforcement duties as the curfew or limited stay-at-home order goes into effect at 10 p.m. Saturday.

The California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) said it will visit bars and restaurants that serve alcohol and food to ensure they close at 10 p.m., but said the agency prefers “education over enforcement,” spokesperson Veronica Andrade said in an email.

The curfew continues every night from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. for a month.

A COVID-19 strike team that teamed ABC and other state agencies since July 1 has visited California businesses more than 94,000 times, issuing 143 citations for health order violations, Andrade said.

Despite quickly changing orders, Merced County’s coronavirus numbers have recently climbed.

New COVID-19 infections on Friday tallied 102, marking the third day in a row that new cases have numbered more than 100. This notes a significant uptick from September and October, when new cases were typically fewer than 50 each day.

Friday’s new positive cases brought the total number confirmed during the pandemic to 10,986.

As of Friday, the pandemic has claimed 176 known lives in Merced County. Seven of those fatalities were confirmed this week.

Nearby Fresno County has averaged about 287 new cases of COVID-19 per day — an increase of 164.5% from two weeks ago, based on data from the California Department of Public Health.

In total, there have been 34,997 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Fresno County, with 12,504 active infections, and 463 COVID-19 related deaths (1.3%).

Curfew order

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said this week his deputies will not enforce curfew.

Merced County’s code enforcement, too, is focused on businesses operating outside of their designated land uses and not curfew, according to Mark Hendrickson, director of the Community and Economic Development Department

“As it pertains to the curfew, it is not the role of county code enforcement nor are there resources in place to enforce such a restriction,” he said.

Law enforcement in other parts of the Valley has not enforced past orders, like those that prohibited indoor dining. That obligation was left up to code enforcement officers.

That arrangement came to a head in Fresno in May after The Waffle Shop in northwest Fresno opened against orders prohibiting indoor dining. An officer responded to a hostile crowd and ultimately detained one man who stood in the way of the officer.

Fresno Chief Andy Hall released a statement following the clash saying police would not be involved in enforcing coronavirus orders.

Fresno Mayor Lee Brand on Thursday said police won’t enforce curfew either. He asked residents to adhere to the curfew on their own.

“Our police department will concentrate on their regular responsibilities to serve and protect the people of Fresno,” Brand said.

This time around, code enforcement officers are also not involved. Fresno city spokesperson Mark Standriff said code enforcement officers will continue to respond to complaints for businesses not adhering to social distancing or other coronavirus safety issues, but will not be involved in enforcing the curfew.

Fresno County Supervisors Nathan Magsig and Buddy Mendes both said Tuesday they support voluntary compliance from businesses now that the county is back in the purple tier. They said the focus will be on ensuring hospitals have capacity for COVID-19 patients and relieving business-related costs.

Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims said she saw no evidence the curfew would work. “We are not going to make criminals out of these normally law-abiding citizens,” she said.

Fresno County spokesperson Jordan Scott said the county’s code enforcement would only come into play if businesses were shown to “blatantly disregard” safety or became “immediate threats” to public safety. “We continue to primarily rely on voluntary compliance with the new orders as we have throughout the pandemic,” he said.

This story was originally published November 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.