She defied COVID rules and lost her restaurant; now she’s suing Long Beach seeking millions
By Jeremiah Dobruck,
4 days agoThis story is available for republication. Please see our policy here .
Nearly four years after she set off a firestorm of controversy by defying COVID-19 rules at the height of the pandemic, a former restaurant owner is locked in a new legal battle with the city of Long Beach.
The conflict ignited earlier this year when the city attorney sued Dana Tanner, who owned the now-infamous Fourth Street bistro Restauration. Long Beach was trying to recoup about $40,000 in municipal business loans they say she never repaid after shuttering her restaurant and leaving town.
In response to the collections lawsuit, Tanner has sued back. In a 27-page complaint she authored herself, she accuses the city of zealously destroying her business with escalating enforcement of COVID orders.
When she refused to comply and encourage others to join her cause , she alleges the city targeted her with a “public vilification campaign” that left her with a “destroyed community standing, devastated family and emotional trauma.”
She’s seeking more than $2 million in compensatory damages — mostly in wages and profits she says she would’ve earned if she hadn’t been forced to close Restauration. The complaint also names a host of city officials, including the mayor and City Council, who Tanner alleges should pay her more than $20 million in punitive damages.
But, Tanner writes, the lawsuit is also about “preventing government agencies from using regulatory authority as a weapon of destruction against citizens who dare to challenge their power.”
Because the court battle is still playing out, the Long Beach City Attorney’s office declined to answer questions about Tanner or her lawsuit. The city has previously defended its crackdown on Tanner, who was openly defying COVID-19 regulations by hosting diners on her outdoor patio at a time when hospitals were on the verge of being overwhelmed.
LinkTanner was so determined to stay open that, at one point, she used a pirated gas line to fuel her appliances after the city shut off her utilities. Her neighbors reported her after smelling gas and fearing an explosion .
Ultimately, Tanner was charged with 20 misdemeanors, but a judge agreed to dismiss the case when she completed more than 80 hours of community service and tearfully asked for leniency, saying she’d lost her livelihood and was now working as a fitness instructor and bartender to pay off loans and support her two children.
In her lawsuit, Tanner is now laying blame for her tribulations squarely on Long Beach, accusing the city of targeting her with extreme and unconstitutional tactics.
“This is a case about government officials who orchestrated an unprecedented campaign to destroy a small business owner who dared to question their authority,” she writes.
She blames them for, among other things:
- Labeling Restauration a public nuisance and putting pressure on her landlord to evict her
- “Amplifying public hostility” by using an artificial intelligence firm to analyze online sentiments about Tanner and telling other business owners that most people disapproved of what she was doing
- Asking a judge to hold her on $100,000 bail — an amount she alleges was exorbitant for the misdemeanor charges she faced
- Vilifying her to the point that people began calling her a murderer and telling her they wished her children would die of COVID
- Denying her permits to reopen even when the state began allowing outdoor dining
- Offering her a chance to reopen Restauration legally only if she shut the restaurant down completely for six months and paid more than $5,000 in penalties — something Tanner said would’ve been a death knell for her business
She alleges the city’s hostility continued even after she left town. Had Long Beach not forced her to close, Tanner writes, she would’ve been able to pay back the loans the city is now trying to collect.
Long Beach has sued to recoup unpaid loans before, according to Principal Deputy City Attorney Howard D. Russell, but he declined to speak specifically about the decision to do so in Tanner’s case.
The city has already had to foot the bill for thousands of dollars Tanner failed to repay as a part of her criminal case.
Originally, Long Beach sought to make her pay the more than $28,000 they said it cost to investigate and prosecute her, but a judge reduced that to $5,000 after deciding Tanner should be on the hook for only the cost of the city’s emergency response to the gas leak.
After Tanner told the judge she was broke and had lost everything in her fight to stay open, he agreed to spare her from the reduced fine as well.
The whole ordeal, Tanner says in her lawsuit, left her with legal fees, unremitted sales taxes and unpaid bills to vendors that left her about $150,000 in debt.
The post She defied COVID rules and lost her restaurant; now she’s suing Long Beach seeking millions appeared first on Long Beach Post .
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