Diner Owner Sublimely Turns Tables on Snitches to COVID Hotline – We Deserve to Know Who We Can Trust
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he owner of a Puget Sound-area diner has turned the tables on “tattletales” who called the Washington State COVID-19 snitch line to report that “people are eating.”
Craig Kenady’s savage and proportional reply to his critics may make them think twice before calling Governor Jay Inslee’s COVID snitch line on That One Place Diner again.
Tattletales have made 260-plus complaints to Inslee’s COVID violation line about the car-themed restaurant at a Port Orchard strip mall since May 2020, when Kenady defied the governor’s rules about shutting down.
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The outside of That One Place in Port Orchard. (Screengrab from KIRO 7 TV)
A number of businesses in the state stayed open in defiance of the governor’s emergency orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, including many restaurants that chose to remain open for indoor dining. The owners made the call for variety of reasons, some because their employees couldn’t pay their rent or didn’t know how they were going to put food on the table.
In Port Orchard, a diner called That One Place is one such business that decided to stay open.
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“So here’s the list everybody calls the tattletale list,” says owner Craig Kenady.
His bottom line:
“If you want to tell on your neighbors, then your neighbors deserve to know who you are. Plain and simple,” says Kenady.
But it’s not that simple, say the people on the list.
Deepening the divide
It all started in May of 2020 when That One Place opened for indoor dining in protest of Washington’s Covid-19 restrictions.
Sean Watkins, an army veteran, lives in Port Orchard and works as the director of a social services organization in Seattle. He filed one of the 260 complaints against the restaurant.
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News Tribune, Tacoma, Wash. 12/15/2020 Lauren Smith, The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)
Dec. 15 This page includes coronavirus developments around Washington state for Tuesday, Dec. 15.
Port Orchard diner has liquor license suspended over violations
Updated 11 a.m.
That One Place, a diner in Port Orchard, has had its liquor license suspended by by the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) over repeated COVID-19 public health and safety violations the agency wrote in a release Monday.
The LCB provided the licensee a 24-hour period to avoid the suspension by complying with state law, but the owner would not agree to follow the law, the release says.