SHERMAN OAKS, CA- A California restaurant owner is slamming COVID huckster and “virology” expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after he admitted to a House committee this week that many of the restrictions put in place during the pandemic had no basis in science.
Angela Mardsden, who went viral during the pandemic when draconian COVID restrictions were put in place by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, based in part on Fauci’s direction, forced her restaurant to close while a movie set operated next door, says Fauci’s “guidance” destroyed the restaurant industry in California.
In an appearance on Fox Business program “Varney & Co.” on Tuesday, Marsden said she’s “very angry” after Fauci told lawmakers that social distancing rules were not backed by science.
“It’s very traumatizing,” Marsden said.
She told host Stuart Varney that the COVID restrictions continue to have residual effects on the hospitality industry, noting that people are “still going out of business” due to those mandates.
“It closed 30 percent of the restaurants in California. And the way he said it, it’s just, I don’t understand. Isn’t there any liability, any responsibility that anybody is going to take for this? It destroyed our industry. It’s very confusing,” Marsden, owner of the Pineapple Hill Saloon and Grill in Sherman Oaks told Varney.
During a House committee hearing Monday, Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was grilled primarily by Republican lawmakers on the various restrictions put in place during the early stages of the pandemic, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s ridiculous six-foot distancing rules, the masking of children who bore little risk from the disease, and other pandemic restrictions. Democrats, meanwhile, gave Fauci a virtual tongue bath.
Marsden told Varney that while she was able to remain open, she still carries a lot of debt.
“I carry debt, I have a huge loan payment that I have to pay, even though I was lucky enough and had donations that saved my bar,” she said.
“So, can you imagine what other restaurant owners are going through? I mean, and 30 percent of us in California were wiped out,” she continued.
Things got so bad for some bar and restaurant owners during the pandemic, several whom she knew quite well “killed themselves” during the pandemic because they were “losing their home and everything.”
As bad as the COVID mandates were on California restaurant owners, the state’s recently imposed $20 per hour minimum wage law is also ruining the restaurant business.
“Listen, I don’t understand what’s going on, but they were raising [the] minimum wage during COVID. They didn’t even stop raising [the] minimum wage during COVID when we were barely…open,” she said.
In addition to high wages, restaurant owners are also getting slammed by high liability insurance rates.
“Most people are still paying back rent from debt. Fifty-one percent of the restaurants in L.A. that were supposed to get the restaurant revitalization grant never received the money. Some of those people mortgaged their house, being told they were going to get it, and Congress never fulfilled that completely,” Marsden said.
She said the COVID restrictions were the “largest transfer of wealth from Main Street to basically, you know, the big guys.”
“People are still suffering.”
And Fauci is laughing all the way to the bank.
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