Westlake COVID


On May 22, I listened to Westlake Village City Council’s session to discuss local business economic recovery from the COVID-19 shutdown.

For more than two hours, local business owners urged the council to press L.A. County officials to allow our community to reopen just as Thousand Oaks has been able to open in Ventura County.

I sympathize with business owners who have been forced to keep their doors closed for more than 10 weeks and are suffering significant economic pain. It would be a great loss to me personally if my favorite local restaurants and stores were forced out of business permanently by this closure.

I also acknowledge that local case counts of COVID-19 are low compared to the rest of the county, and our hospital is not in imminent danger of running out of ICU space. That’s because of the community’s shared sacrifice, for which I am grateful.

However, I was disappointed that discussion of local economic health was not more balanced with consideration of public health. The business owners who addressed the council spent relatively little time talking about measures they would take to continue to protect public health if allowed to reopen.

I was particularly shocked by remarks delivered by Westlake Village Inn CFO Chris Cuilty, who urged local businesses to engage in “civil disobedience” to pressure the county and governor for a variance from health orders.

Mr. Cuilty offered the Westlake Village Inn parking lot as the setting for a haircutting stunt involving actors, so no real hairstylists would lose their business licenses, to draw PR attention to local businesses’ plight.

Mr. Cuilty, I don’t know exactly what it costs to stage this kind of fake “rally,” but surely those dollars would be better spent on hand sanitizer, masks for your employees and even masks for the patrons of Stonehaus, Bogies and the Mediterraneo restaurant.

Recent scientific studies have shown that if most people wore masks any time they were around others, the rate of COVID-19 transmission would go way down and business shutdowns would be unnecessary.

Sarah Reines
WestlakeVillage