Coyote Blog

I have never seen anything like the year we are having in the outdoor recreation and camping business, on many fronts.  The problem hiring workers has been discussed before.  But something I have only seen in written up in a few places is what seems to be a growing abusiveness of the public toward service workers.  We have already had a record number of incidents this year of threats by visitors aimed at our employees.  In most cases, the issue seems to be that the employee, usually politely, attempted to enforce a rule or restriction the customer did not want to hear and the customer exploded.

I do not know if this is just an issue in the outdoor business, with a flood of new customers who have never camped before and don't really have clear expectations about what is and is not allowed in a campground.  I don't know if it is some kind of COVID/Lockdown hangover.  I don't know if it is a sign of rising entitlement.  But it is frustrating to have our people treated this way.

I remember a sign I saw in a restaurant years ago, "please be nice to your server, they are harder to get than customers."

Variations of "my body my rights" have been a central theme for the Left for decades.  I am all for this (as long as we are applying it to adults wholeheartedly but more restrictively to minors).  But I have argued for years that this represents faux libertarianism -- the Left believes this absolutely when it comes to abortion (and more recently for gender transitions among minors) but not so much when it comes to any other issues.  You want to eat GMO foods?  Sorry, you can't do that.  Smoke?  Sorry, no dice.  Teenage tanning salon visits?  Sorry, not without more parental paperwork than is required for an abortion.

Here is your latest example, from the most progressive city in the country, San Francisco which is requiring vaccinations of all employees:

So these folks who don't think a couple of decades of testing of GMO foods is enough are requiring injection of a vaccine that has been tested for barely a year (I personally consider it safe and was vaccinated but I also consume GMO foods without reservation -- my body my choice).

By the way, this is from the ACLU website:

Being able to make our own decisions about our health, body and sexual life is a basic human right.

Whoever you are, wherever you live, you have the right to make these choices without fear, violence or discrimination.

Yet all over the world, people are bullied, discriminated against and arrested, simply for making choices about their bodies and their lives.

The ACLU, of course, has been completely missing in action throughout COVID, when we have experienced some of the greatest government intrusions of individual rights in our nation's history.  Lockdowns?  Silence.  Mask mandates?  Silence.   Bans on assembly?  Silence.  Censorship of heterodox opinions on the virus (that turn out to be right)? Silence.  Forced vaccinations?  Silence.  All of this is consistent with the ACLU's transition from being a true civil rights organization to yet another progressive political lobbyist.

I usually don't quote other blog posts in their entirety, but this is so classic that I feel the need to.  This is from Holden Law Group, an excellent resource we use to try desperately to remain in compliance with California Labor law when such law can sometimes change many times in a single year, sometimes retroactively.  California has very onerous rules on businesses for COVID occupational health compliance.  This is an update on those rules:

[[ORIGINAL POST]] Cal/OSHA continued its burlesque impersonation of a 6-year-old child at an ice cream shop this past week.  Originally, on May 7th, the state bureaucracy unveiled proposed changes to the COVID-19 Prevention Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”).  However, shortly thereafter, Cal/OSHA announced that it was tabling its final vote on the revisions; and instead, was scheduling an “emergency” meeting for June 3^rd because the proposed changes were not in-line with the guidelines of the California Department of Public Health and federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”). Then, last week at this “emergency” meeting, Cal/OSHA initially indicated that it would indeed reject the proposed ETS changes because they were not consistent with the CDC guidance. However, by the end of the meeting, Cal/OSHA unanimously voted in favor of adopting those very same revisions.  Vanilla.  Chocolate. Yes, Chocolate…. Well…. actually Vanilla.  Definitely, Vanilla. Click here to read on – blog posted June 8, 2021….

[[UPDATE]] After this blog was originally posted, Cal/OSHA had yet another “emergency” meeting on June 9, 2021, this time unanimously voting NOT to adopt the proposed new revisions to its regulations.  Mind you, this is the same Cal/OSHA who unanimously voted TO adopt the revisions just a few days ago – and no new guidance from the CDC or public health officials has occurred in the interim – just a letter from the State Health Officer to Cal/OSHA reminding them that their proposed revisions were inconsistent with federal guidance and that the rest of the State would be following that federal guidance starting June 15th.

So where does that leave us, you ask. By voting not to adopt the proposed revisions, the same old Cal/OSHA regulations which have been in effect since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic will remain in effect for the foreseeable future – regulations which are even MORE inconsistent with federal guidance than were the proposed revisions.  So, for now, Cal/OSHA is back to Chocolate ice cream – stale, well past its expiration date, Chocolate ice cream.