OKC Curfew Enforcement, Stephanie Bice's Senate Seat, Stopped Trains & More [0:00-5:00]

KOSU is a non-profit newsroom that means we rely on individual gifts to fund the service. A hundred percent pays for local reporting. It's a worthy investment. Give now at donate.kosu.org Support for this week in Oklahoma politics podcast comes from home creations. Oklahoma City based home builders with over 40 years of experience building new homes in the Oklahoma City Metro. More including financing options, virtual tours and locations at homecreations.com for KOSU. I'm Michael Cross and it's time for this week in Oklahoma politics along with civil rights attorney Ryan Kiesel and Republican political consultant Niva Hill joining me over zoom video conference. Oklahoma City is ending its enforcement over bars and restaurants staying open after 11 o'clock. The decision came after the city. It's police chief and mayor David Holt were sued by club owners and bartenders. Mayor Holt issued the order on on enforcement in response to governor states ban on food or drink sales after 11 for 30 days. Ryan what do you think about okay see pulling back on enforcement? Well and you know when they say pulling back on enforcement the the prohibitions still there it's just a matter of whether or not they're going to be enforcing it with a separate fine and penalty on top of what the state may already do. You know so you're not going to see Oklahoma City police officers out issuing citations. I think the amount was up to $750 for violations of the curfew the 11 p.m. curfew for bars and restaurants. So that's what's stopping. I mean the curfew is still there and if you look at state regulators they said that there still may be consequences in licensing and fees that operators may face if they begin to violate this. It should be noted that the state recognizes or the state is reporting at least that you're seeing compliance almost across the board here. You know almost everybody is complying with this. Nobody is disputing the fact that bar owners employees of bars and restaurants are being seriously hurt by this. I mean they've been seriously hurt by COVID all around. It's it's a desperate situation out there. There needs to be a real relief package either from the federal level or the state level or both to help provide some relief to those folks. But what happened in district court was that the judge said because the city of Oklahoma City has removed their fine and I'm not going to be enforcing that on their fine that that issue was moot for now and there's going to be a January hearing on whether or not state law would even allow that to take place at all. So I mean there's still going to be a question of that as to whether state law and municipal law would allow the governor and or mayor to be able to close bars restaurants at a certain time in response to a pandemic. Niva. Well and the and the other side of this along along with what all Ryan just described is the fact that these the bar owners and bartenders club owners that have filed this lawsuit they seem very interested in what they describe as wanting to get a solid decision on whether or not the use of the Oklahoma riot control and prevention act is lawful. So you got this you got this difference of opinion the club owners and bartenders continuing that that was passed to really fights civil disorder and not infectious diseases or a pandemic and you've got the city in their court filing saying that that it did Oklahoma City civil emergency code it was a state of emergency such as they proclaimed by the mayor because you have a local transmission of a disease that is a public disaster and so they believe that it falls under the public peace and health and and life and prosperity clause. So I think it's interesting that that you've got this that this real contrast on the on the legal dispute and it will be interesting to see whether they really can move forward through the courts as as the group's attorney suggested when he was before the district court judge. Yeah and you know the the main argument from the plaintiffs in this case the bar owners and and employees of bars and restaurants that have filed this case their main argument is just what Niva said and that's a 1968 law what they're saying is that when the legislature passed that law in 1968 it was intended to as a response to the upheaval that was happening across the United States you know during the civil rights movement in the 1960s and it wasn't you know the legislature didn't intend at all for this to deal with something like a pandemic. Now that legislative history is only relevant in a court case though if the language is as ambiguous if there's some uncertainty as to what that language means and frankly I just don't see that there's any uncertainty whenever it says that the governor and the municipal code the mayor have the power whenever there's a finding that you have public disorder disaster