Santa Rosa nonprofit Crossing the Jordan sues over stay-at-home orders

Santa Rosa nonprofit Crossing the Jordan, which has racked up two dozen citations from city police over suspected violations of Sonoma County’s stay-home order, is suing to challenge state and local pandemic restrictions and to defend its decision to continue operating several thrift stores amid the shutdown.

Between May 12 and May 20, the Santa Rosa Police Department issued eight citations for each of the three thrift stores operated in the city by Crossing the Jordan. The organization for years has funded homeless shelter operations and provided job training by running six consignment stores across Sonoma County.

Crossing the Jordan is the only business in Santa Rosa that has been cited for alleged violations of the shelter-in-place order, said Santa Rosa Police Capt. John Cregan on Tuesday. A police team has responded to more than 200 reports of businesses not following the rules of the county’s coronavirus health order, Cregan said - and Crossing the Jordan stands alone among those enterprises.

“All businesses, with the exception of Crossing the Jordan, were found to be in compliance or made changes to become compliant after they were contacted by the Police Department,” Cregan said.

The misdemeanor citations went to Michael Bryant, CEO and co-founder of the nonprofit, who was repeatedly arrested and released over the nine-day span in a process akin to a traffic ticket, according to Matthew Becker, the Sacramento attorney representing Bryant and his wife and business partner, Dana Bryant, executive director of Crossing the Jordan.

Most retailers weren’t allowed to reopen in the county until May 8, when an amendment to the shelter-in-place order by Dr. Sundari Mase, the county health officer, allowed stores to operate via curbside pickup.

The Bryants and their attorney emphasize that the shops’ revenue is a fundamental part of Crossing the Jordan’s enterprise, providing funding for long-term residential shelter for people who would otherwise be homeless, as well job skills training.

Their 36-page lawsuit, filed May 13 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, challenges Mase’s order and the statewide pandemic restrictions imposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration. It raises more than a dozen arguments about the constitutionality of the stay-home orders, invoking the rights to be free from unreasonable seizures as well as unreasonable fines and cruel and unusual punishments.

“These shelter-in-place orders criminalized people going out of their places of abode,” amounting to a “collective seizure of the liberty of movement of the entire population of California,” the lawsuit claims.

It is one of several court challenges statewide that seek to nullify the pandemic stay-home orders restricting various aspects of commercial and civic activity. Many of the suits were filed by the Center for American Liberty, a conservative nonprofit suing Newsom’s administration over myriad aspects of the statewide shelter-in-place order.

The Bryants also contend that their business is operating lawfully because they’ve implemented several precautions to prevent viral spread and because their stores sell sanitary products and other essential items, which they say they have always stocked.

According to Santa Rosa police, officers warned Crossing the Jordan twice while all but essential retail outlets were shut down between March 18 and May 7, and then issued written warnings to all three Santa Rosa stores after Crossing the Jordan allegedly operated beyond the bounds of curbside pickup limits.

The Bryants and their attorney say Crossing the Jordan’s stores were offering essential products and funding the nonprofit’s essential nonretail services, though county attorneys determined that the stores were not essential.

‘Unusual situation’

Dana Bryant said attempts by Crossing the Jordan to seek clarity from local officials have been unsuccessful.

“Everything isn’t so black and white, and it falls into an unusual situation,” she said of Crossing the Jordan’s model of operations.

Michael and Dana Bryant, both raised in Rohnert Park, launched their organization in 2011 with a name inspired by the biblically significant river in the Middle East and an origin story built out of their checkered pasts. Both husband and wife have been open about their struggles with drugs and time behind bars years ago. Michael was in and out of multiple prisons for nearly nine years total, starting as a 20-year-old convicted of stealing a big rig. Dana was an inmate for about five years after robbing numerous banks in her early 20s.

“We are not proud of what we’ve done, but who we are is why we can do what we do,” Dana Bryant said. “We just never forgot where we came from.”

They opened their first shop on Santa Rosa Avenue in 2011, followed in 2012 by their first group home, a space for a dozen people in Rohnert Park. Altogether, Crossing the Jordan has three stores in Santa Rosa, one just south of the city limits and one each in Rohnert Park and Petaluma - though Dana Bryant said they’ve been forced to close their Petaluma location and are fearing the same fate for their store in Rohnert Park.

The nonprofit’s most recent, publicly available tax filing, covering operations in 2018, reported more than $3.2 million in annual revenue, most of it tied to the thrift stores. Bryant said the nonprofit was currently housing more than 100 people in Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park.

Citations pile up

Becker, their attorney, argued that his clients were facing financial ruin when they decided to reopen in early May.

“If and when these cases end up in criminal court, one of our defenses will be that they were complying with the orders as written, and that the Santa Rosa Police Department was going rogue,” Becker said.

But Cregan, the police captain, emphasized that officers tried to seek voluntary compliance by educating Crossing the Jordan’s management about the option of operating through curbside pickup and providing updated copies of the shelter-in-place order to Michael Bryant. The citations each carry potential fines of $50 to $1,000 and up to 90 days in jail - for Bryant totaling a maximum of $24,000 and six years in jail.

The encounters with law enforcement began when Santa Rosa police first learned on March 23 about a reported violation of the county’s initial March 17 stay-home order involving Crossing the Jordan’s store on Piner Road, Cregan said, adding that the complaint came from a Sonoma County government worker who was conveying a call from a concerned citizen.

The store was “fully operating” in violation of the order, Cregan said, but after officers gave Michael Bryant a verbal warning and provided information about the order, the store closed to comply.

Officers returned on May 4 after another complaint and found that Crossing the Jordan’s Piner store was once again open in violation of the shelter-in-place, prompting officers to issue a written warning to Michael Bryant instructing him to comply with the order, according to Cregan.

A week later, on May 11, officers received a complaint that the Piner location, as well as Crossing the Jordan’s downtown and Rincon Valley stores, all were open for business, Cregan said. Officers issued written warnings, but this time, Bryant told officers “he was not going to comply with the order and would accept the legal consequences,” Cregan said.

That prompted officers to start issuing near-daily citations until May 21, when Bryant told officers he would comply by operating only through curbside sales, Cregan said.

“This enforcement action was truly a last-case resort, but the police department had no other option for the safety of all involved,” Cregan said.

Dana Bryant confirmed that the citations have stopped. But whether the stores qualify as essential businesses remains a point of contention between local governments and Crossing the Jordan.

Becker, the attorney for the Bryants, cited a provision in Mase’s shelter-in-place orders that allows social services for economically disadvantaged individuals to continue operating, specifically calling out businesses that provide shelter.

“We have an essential program that is dependent on the stores,” Dana Bryant said.

County counsel’s view

But Sonoma County Counsel Bruce Goldstein’s office made the determination that Crossing the Jordan’s stores are not essential businesses - a view Santa Rosa police relied on for enforcement - even though Crossing the Jordan does some work that constitutes “an important community service,” Goldstein said.

“Indoor business activities pose a greater risk of virus transmission, and Crossing Jordan has had the option since May 8th of curbside sales - like other retail businesses,” Goldstein said in an email. “The lawsuit is consistent with their business operations which ignore the seriousness of the current threat to public health.”

Goldstein noted that U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria seemed to agree with his office’s view, given the judge’s denial of the Bryants’ request for a restraining order that sought to block government officials from enforcing the state and county orders.

Chhabria denied that request about a week after the lawsuit was filed. The case isn’t scheduled to return to the judge’s desk anytime soon.

Becker said he intended to keep pushing the case after gathering additional evidence. He also questioned the magnitude of the social and commercial shutdowns ordered to contain the coronavirus.

“Is that a serious disease? Absolutely it is,” Becker said. “Is it anything close to a justification to shut down small businesses? No, it is not.”

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.