During the coronavirus era in Fresno, what’s more important: Breakfast food or a person’s life?

When are eggs, bacon and a waffle more important than a human life?

Apparently when you are the owner of the Waffle Shop restaurant in Fresno and you decide to reopen your business during the city’s emergency order to close nonessential businesses in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There was ugliness all around at the front of the Waffle Shop in northwest Fresno on Sunday when city code enforcement officers tried to serve a notice to the restaurant owner that he was violating the emergency declaration.

A crowd of patrons standing at the door began protesting, and blocked the code enforcement officers from entering. They called for police assistance. A police officer showed up and tried to get to the entry.

The crowd closed in around the officer, shouting and yelling ugly things, and a man “grabbed the officer and pushed him away,” said a Fresno PD sergeant. The officer detained the man for a short time, the crowd yelling all the while.

Police Chief Andy Hall was not happy with how his officer responded and has ordered an internal review. That examination will also consider the hostility of the crowd facing the officer and the aspect of whether the man grabbed the officer.

Then there is the backdrop of antagonism created by City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld, whose public opposition to Mayor Lee Brand and the emergency order was fuel for the crowd’s response.

Like conservatives across the country who are chafing under the economic shutdown brought about by the pandemic, Bredefeld has blamed Brand for being authoritarian in his orders that have shuttered businesses the city has determined to be nonessential. Restaurants are closed because of how, by their nature, they bring people together and foster an easy environment for viruses to spread.

Bredefeld’s rhetoric has shape-shifted the debate away from public health to constitutional freedoms.

Let’s be clear: We are living through a public health crisis. COVID-19 is a new virus for which there is not yet a vaccine. It spreads fast and is particularly virulent in attacking older people. It gets into the body’s respiratory system and ultimately suffocates victims. Nine people have died in Fresno County, a relatively small number and one that suggests the stay-at-home and social distancing orders have worked.

But pandemics take time to overcome. Business owners, including those who operate restaurants, are understandably struggling, and some might be on the verge of closing for good. That is unfortunate.

Still, the question remains: Is a breakfast out at a favorite restaurant more important than a human life?

Sacrifices made

It is understandable that Fresnans are tired of staying home. Restaurants and bars have been closed since March 17. But in a historical context, that is a blip of time.

Americans endured gas rationing for almost four years during World War II. Driving from 1941-45 was curtailed by more than 30 percent, as rationing was a way to direct precious resources — namely gasoline and rubber — to the war effort.

The point of the comparison, as imperfect as it may be, is twofold: One, current complaints are really just immature, shortsighted responses. And two, Americans have the capacity to make great sacrifices when focused on a common goal.

Public health threat

The enemy today is not Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan, but an invisible virus that has swept the globe and killed more than 280,000 people.

Overcoming it means keeping the possibilities of infection at a minimum. It means not opening the economy until it is safe to do so. It means reopening in a careful, planned way.

Unfortunately, Bredefeld and those of his mindset cannot wait. He says in one moment that he wants Fresno to follow federal guidelines for the pandemic, but then he pivots to brash declarations of how Mayor Brand is acting unconstitutionally and trampling on the free enterprise system.

Brand is acting responsibly as the elected executive of city government. On Monday, as certain types of businesses were reopened in Fresno under set guidelines, Brand announced the city would do “everything in our power to help the county get a variance from the state to allow restaurants, churches, hair salons and other higher risk operations to open as soon as possible.”

Until that occurs, eggs and waffles are not more important than saving lives. Neither are seafood dinners or drinks with friends at a high-end bar.

Once it is safe for restaurants to reopen, Fresnans can enthusiastically patronize them. Until then, the city’s guidelines need to be followed.

Lives are most important. Fresnans cannot let politicians confuse that key point.

This story was originally published May 11, 2020 at 1:13 PM.