Two Northwest Side Chicago food and drink establishments have joined their names to the list of businesses challenging Gov. JB Pritzker’s authority to shut them down in the name of fighting COVID-19.
On Jan. 4, the owners of the Pink Krokodile Café and Christina’s Place filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court against Pritzker.
The lawsuit was filed by attorney Francis Ostian, of Chicago, on behalf of the corporate entities known as Where’s Pappa Inc. and Pink Krokodile Café Inc.
Christina’s Place, a tavern operated by Where’s Pappa, is located at 3759 N. Kedzie, in Chicago’s Irving Park East neighborhood. Pink Krokodile, a restaurant that also serves alcoholic beverages, is at 6004 W. Belmont, in the Belmont Central neighborhood.
As with many other such lawsuits filed against Pritzker in the past few months, the lawsuit asserts the governor overstepped his lawful authority in issuing executive orders intended to shutdown indoor dining at restaurants and bars across the state.
Pritzker has said the restrictions are needed to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19.
The governor ordered indoor dining and drinking to cease at restaurants and bars across the entire state last fall, purportedly in response to a surge of new detected cases of COVID-19. That marked the second time Pritzker had ordered restaurants limited exclusively to takeout orders since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March.
Many restaurant owners and their trade groups have decried Pritzker’s orders, which they said have already put many restaurants out of business, and threaten to put thousands more under, as the pandemic has continued throughout the winter thus far, and the restrictions have remained.
Since Pritzker imposed the new restrictions last fall, restaurant owners from the suburbs and elsewhere in the state have sued the governor.
To date, those lawsuits have met with very little success, as judges have nearly unanimously ruled that Pritzker is within his authority to shut down restaurants and other businesses in the name of public health.
The Illinois Supreme Court has consolidated those legal challenges before a judge in Springfield.
That judge has sided regularly with the governor and the Illinois Attorney General’s interpretation of state law. The judge has largely relied on a decision from the Illinois Second District Appellate Court in Elgin. In that decision, the appellate justices explicitly declared Pritzker can continue to govern by executive orders, including orders shutting down restaurants and other businesses, under Illinois’ emergency management law for as long as the governor believes the pandemic continues.
The Geneva restaurant that is the plaintiff in that case has appealed that Second District decision to the Illinois Supreme Court, saying the courts' reasoning has left restaurants "out in the cold" and "without legal redress." The high court has not yet issued a decision on whether it will accept the case.