I am a small business owner. The governor of my state informs me that for whatever reason, my business has been deemed nonessential. I am therefore ordered to close my doors until further notice. Where is the due process? My livelihood has been stripped away with no recourse, no accountability. And the solution proposed is the government should hand me money?
Just because the john hands you $1,000, doesn’t mean you didn’t just get fucked.
What is the due process you are mentioning here? Consultations, ability to submit / lobby etc to confirm what should and shouldn't be deemed nonessential? Concern could be that if following this process, it could take too long and things spiral out of control in meantime, or are you thinking immediate action is close down, but with opportunity to pursue ability to open up afterwards if then deemed essential? I think the latter seems fair.
However, with the whole due process thing, part of it potentially is also around what is legal as such - your talk about due process suggests that perhaps there is supposed to be a due process, and so what they are doing is illegal - if so, is there recourse to the courts?
I'm in NZ, and there has been some testing in the courts of our lockdown, with some questions remaining as to the extent our laws allow for the lockdown and enforcement of it. (I'm probably not understanding it well, but there are some suggestions that potentially the health people can basically put through a lockdown, but it isn't enforcable as such, so more a strong request).
Otherwise, if it is legal, then sounds like more a system fault that needs to be explored somehow?
Otherwise, for specific circumstance, and we are struggling with here too, I would like to think if they have forced you to shut down, that you should be able to get either insurance or payout that will cover the cost of shutdown.
I.e, something like:
Revenue during period would normally be $200k
Costs during period would normally be $150k
Costs actually incurred are $50k
So should be assistance to tune of $200 - (150 - 50) = $100000. If the $1000 provided is arbitrary and doesn't apply to the above, then yeah, I don't think what they are doing is sufficient.
***editing because can't math
