The City of Hollister on Wednesday closed the first local business – a downtown smoke shop – which refused to comply with shelter-in-place orders.
Mayor Ignacio Velazquez confirmed the city cited Smokey Pete’s Smoke Shop at 727 San Benito St. and pulled its business license after warning the business to close during the COVID-19 pandemic. The city also cited the business, he said.
“We want to send the message – we’re not playing around,” Velazquez said.
Local authorities are taking the approach of warning businesses first before taking such action. The mayor said the smoke shop had been warned a couple of times before Wednesday’s action.
The business owner could not be reached immediately for comment.
Earlier in the day, before the closure, county Public Information Officer David Westrick noted how there had been 29 calls to a hotline set up for citizen reporting of non-complying businesses. Of those, 21 had been for locations in Hollister. Three were in the county. None were in San Juan. And four were for inquiry only, Westrick said.
The county has city code enforcement handle such actions in Hollister.
“At the end of the day, we’re trying to educate these non-essential businesses that they can get in a lot of trouble,” Westrick said Wednesday morning.
He said the local stance is to educate them first.
“If they continue to stay open, that’s when we’ll give them a ticket,” Westrick said.
Residents are advised to call the hotline at (831) 636-4113 to report a non-essential business operating in violation of the local order.
For more in what businesses are considered essential, go here: https://local.nixle.com/alert/7907626/
