Slow start to Sonoma County health order enforcement

Each day since Sonoma County opened a tip line for health order violations in early August, about 18 people on average have called or emailed with complaints about big gatherings in parks, people not wearing masks, businesses letting people inside through back doors and others flouting the rules aimed at stemming the spread of the highly contagious and dangerous new coronavirus.

Among more than a dozen agencies able to issue civil penalties for disobeying health orders, Petaluma and Rohnert Park have issued fines, county officials said. County code enforcement officers, however, have not yet issued any civil citations so far.

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has also not handed out any health order citations, not even to the hosts of a rowdy party at a vacation rental in El Verano last weekend that drew neighborhood complaints and ended in gunfire that struck several homes and vehicles.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Misti Wood said deputies visited the residence twice before dawn Sept. 19, once to warn people about the raucous music and activity and a second time to shut the party down.

The health order bars gatherings with people from outside one’s household, yet determining who is allowed to be with whom can be a complicated and time-consuming endeavor in the middle of the night, Wood said.

“You have to prove a violation. You have a big group of people, and you have to determine who is there, who lives there,” said Wood, who added that deputies had no lawful reason to enter the house.

The lack of action on the part of deputies to enforce health orders that night has raised the issue again about the effectiveness of the county’s plan for enforcing public health rules.

“Why aren’t we having a more unified front and issuing citations?” Supervisor Susan Gorin said.

The county’s hotline is checked during weekday business hours by the permit department’s code enforcement team. After hours, the tip line advises people to call law enforcement about immediate concerns.

Sheriff Mark Essick in late May said he would prohibit his deputies from issuing misdemeanor citations for violating health orders, saying the rules devised by county Health Officer Dr. Sundari Mase were more restrictive than state guidelines.

Within 48 hours, Essick backed down after reaching a compromise with Mase and other county leaders, saying his deputies would first try to convince individuals and businesses to comply with the rules and issue citations in more serious situations.

Assistant Sheriff Jim Naugle said deputies have discretion to make decisions in the field, but they have been told they can and should enforce emergency public health orders aimed at stemming the spread of COVID-19, especially in the case of repeat offenders.

“We’re still trying to do education first, and if that doesn’t work then we’re doing enforcement of the health order,” Naugle said.

Gorin said she agrees agencies should encourage residents to comply with the orders and issue citations judiciously — but the El Verano house party appears a prime example of a violation deserving a consequence.

Gorin said she has scheduled a conversation with Essick to ask him why this party didn’t result in a health order violation for partygoers flouting the rules.

“This is not arresting people and putting them in jail, this is issuing a citation and making them pay,” Gorin said.

Essick was on vacation last week and unavailable to comment.

Gorin said she has heard from local business owners of places like gyms eager to reopen that are frustrated they are losing money while following the rules, while flagrant violators of county health orders are allowed to hold parties without recourse.

She said she will consider bringing the discussion back to the Board of Supervisors about whether the hotline should be checked after business hours.

“I will raise this as an issue again because clearly my neighbors and my constituents think that calling dispatch is useless,” Gorin said.

The health orders require people wear masks in public within 6 feet of others and avoid gatherings with people outside one’s household. They include a variety of other rules for businesses to operate safely while the highly infectious pathogen remains without proven treatment, resulting in grave results for vulnerable populations falling ill.

Sonoma County District Attorney’s officials said they have filed charges in several misdemeanor health order violations since the county’s first health order was issued in March, but could not provide details Friday. Prosecutors are investigating additional reports from law enforcement agencies as well, officials said.

Prosecutors are still reviewing reports about Crossing the Jordan thrift stores, which have since closed. Founders Dana and Michael Bryant refused to follow emergency rules closing most businesses in March, operating in defiance after several warnings from police officers. Police issued two dozen misdemeanor citations to Michael Bryant and charges are pending.

The nonprofit would eventually emerge as the source of a cluster of cases of COVID-19 among employees and residents of several now-shuttered residential shelters it operated.

The party at the vacation rental in El Verano could have been a target for enforcing the county’s health orders prohibiting most gatherings if initial complaints were accurate.

One 911 caller complained that as many as 50 people at the Riverside Drive property were playing loud music and had double-parked cars on the neighborhood street — defying county rules that prohibit gatherings "of any number of people occurring outside a single household or living unit.“

Deputies warned the partygoers to quiet down about 1 a.m. Saturday and returned again about an hour later to “shut the party down,” according to Wood, the Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.

“Everybody go home, turn off the music, the party is now over,” was the message deputies conveyed, according to Wood.

Despite the two visits by deputies, gunfire erupted about 3:45 a.m., striking five homes and three vehicles in the neighborhood. Deputies recovered about 30 shell casings from the area, Sheriff’s Office officials said last week.

This party was called into sheriff’s dispatch and not the county tip line, which is only checked during weekday business hours.

About half of the 1,750 calls and emails that have come into the county’s tip line since it was activated Aug. 6 were too general or not pertinent and disregarded, according to Tyra Harrington, Permit Sonoma code enforcement manager.

But 868 calls or emails contained complaints with specific locations and details about potential violations that were “actionable,” Harrington said.

Code enforcement officers take the messages and forward the vast majority to other agencies, such as the county parks department or other police departments. Harrington said Petaluma and Rohnert Park have issued citations.

Petaluma police have received about 10 complaints per week and they are handled by a variety of city departments, including police, parks and code enforcement, Lt. Tim Lyons said.

“The complaints have definitely gone down,” Lyons said.

County code enforcement staff have responded to 86 of the hundreds of complaints. Most involved businesses, such as complaints about staff and customers not wearing masks or not wearing them correctly, Harrington said.

Harrington said that few complaints involve vacation rentals and many involve people recreating in parks. County code enforcement officers have had to make very few repeat visits to businesses and most appear to follow orders once they are explained, she said.

“It’s keeping us very busy. We take our education job very seriously,” Harrington said. “I have staff trying to educate owners and employees. We do go back for ones that are pretty serious. We do go back and check and monitor to see that they’re complying.“

Most complaints come during the day and few after-hours calls are of an urgent nature and tend toward “commentary and pranking,” according to Harrington.

One potential exception was a tip on a Friday night about a large wedding celebration in Occidental planned for the next day. The Aug. 15 celebration went on as planned, and a guest leaving the party was struck and killed by a vehicle while walking in the roadway.

Naugle cautioned against drawing links between following health orders and incidents like the roadway fatality in Occidental or the gunfire in El Verano. The health orders are meant to protect people against getting sick. The other incidents are matters of possible criminal and vehicular law.

Deputies have responded to 28 calls for service about potential health order violations since August, primarily complaints about people gathering, according to Wood. None of those complaints resulted in citations.

“That tells me that people are listening when we go and tell them what the problem is,” Naugle said. “That to me lends credibility to the education-first strategy.”

The public can report violations by calling 1-833-SAFE707 (1-833-723-3707) or emailing safe707@sonoma-county.org.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.