they do not feel that enforcing public health orders is a law enforcement issue<\/a>. <\/p>\nTherefore, enforcement of the orders is up to the Pitkin County Public Health Department, which this week responded to a story in the Aspen Daily News about scores of people drinking at Scarlett\u2019s, not social distancing, not wearing facemasks and employees exhibiting lax disinfecting procedures. The department issued restaurant owner Andrew Sandler a cease-and-desist order and notice of violation, said Peacock and McNicholas Kury. <\/p>\n
Sandler did not return a phone message Friday seeking comment about the violation. <\/p>\n
Enforcement of public health orders is difficult because they are long, complicated and frequently change, Pitkin County Attorney John Ely said Thursday during a county Board of Health meeting. It\u2019s best to give people time to adjust, then follow-up with education efforts that will hopefully correct violations, he said. <\/p>\n
However, the rare obstinate person can trigger a full enforcement action, which could include criminal charges or civil action through a court order, Ely said. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve come close to doing that a few times now,\u201d he said, \u201cbut we haven\u2019t done it yet.\u201d <\/p>\n
In order to ensure community safety, Pitkin County plans to hire two case investigation supervisors, four contact tracers, an epidemiologist and a data manager for the case investigation program. The effort also will include money for a public information person. <\/p>\n
In addition, the county will hire two consumer protection positions that will conduct spot checks at restaurants and other businesses to ensure public health order compliance, Peacock said. The effort will be similar to restaurant inspections, he said. The program also will include an administrative assistant and a liaison to work with businesses on compliances issues. <\/p>\n
Together, the two programs will cost $593,000 for the rest of 2020. <\/p>\n
Commissioners voted to support the six months of funding, but vowed to readdress the situation at the end of the year before allocating $1.1 million to continue the programs through 2021. <\/p>\n
Commissioner Patti Clapper, in particular, questioned whether the number of positions was too many. <\/p>\n
\u201cI see the need but I think we\u2019re going a little too high,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
She said she\u2019d support the six months worth of funding before taking stock of it at the end of the year. <\/p>\n
Clapper also defended local restaurants, saying she\u2019s dined out twice in the past week and found compliance by restaurant workers to be top-notch. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great experience,\u201d she said, encouraging Poschman to give restaurants another shot. \u201cThere are restaurants in this community doing what we require of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public will have a chance to comment on the $600,000 allocation for the COVID-19-related programs June 24 when it is scheduled to be formally adopted. The money became available for the programs immediately Tuesday, however, because commissioners approved the money on an emergency basis. <\/p>\n
The county is anticipating a $3 million drop in revenue because of the COVID-19 virus, Peacock said. However, officials believe they will be reimbursed over the next couple years by the federal government for some expenses. <\/p>\n
Gov. Jared Polis has said Pitkin County will receive $1.5 million of CARES Act money. The county will split that with the city of Aspen and town of Snowmass Village, Peacock said. <\/p>\n
jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/p>\n
via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With restaurants now open in Aspen under COVID-19 restrictions, everyone seems to be a compliance officer. Tables are too close at one spot. Waiters and patrons don\u2019t wear masks at another. A third essentially has become an illegal bar. Umpteen letters to public officials being fired off, some from restauranteurs following the rules and worried […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2459229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 01:23:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2459229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2459229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2459229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2459229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2459229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}