The Los Angeles restaurant owner whose emotional video calling out Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Gov. Gavin Newsom for forcing her and people like her to shut down their businesses, while allowing big catering meals to be served for film crews 50 feet from her outdoor patio, has become the face and voice of a movement.
Angela Mardsen owns the Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill in Sherman Oaks. She appeared on Fox News Monday, telling Neil Cavuto that the heavy-handed actions of government officials are going to kill people. “I have two employees that have lost people that are close to them to suicide in the last two months,” Marsden said. “I have a bartender sleeping on a couch, [and] one with a 3-year-old who can’t pay her rent and can’t get a job and I just hired her because we’d gotten busy in October. She had two weeks of training and then was laid off again from her third job.”
Marsden is like most people who are disgusted by leaders like Garcetti and Newsom being able to make life-altering decisions based on no science or data. “What is going on that our leadership can shut our businesses, with two days’ notice, before the holidays, and not offer a solution to pay us to stay in our homes?”
Probably making matters worse for Marsden is the reaction of Mayor Garcetti, who reportedly said in a statement, “My heart goes out to Ms. Marsden and the workers at the Pineapple Hill Saloon who have to comply with state and county public health restrictions that close outdoor dining.”
Meanwhile, Marsden said she has pleaded with the mayor’s office to have a sit-down meeting with him and other restaurant owners to figure out a workable solution. “Small-business owners, we care so much about our community and our people,” she said. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to keep them safe, but if we’re not here when you come out of your door, your house in two months, the community is going to be destroyed, just destroyed, from unemployment to suicide rates to businesses being shuttered to homeless doubling, tripling.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up for Marsden and her business, and so far it has raised close to $150,000.
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