GOING ROGUE

California County Reopens in Defiance of State Stay-at-Home Order

Modoc County allowed hair salons, churches, restaurants and the county’s single movie theater to resume operations at half capacity.

Modoc County in rural Northern California has allowed businesses to reopen, bucking the governor’s stay-at-home order. The state’s shelter-in-place advisory warns residents to stay inside their homes and orders most businesses to close, but Modoc officials allowed hair salons, churches, restaurants and the county’s single movie theater to resume operations at half capacity on Friday. The county has recorded no cases of COVID-19 among its 9,000 residents. “Our residents were moving forward with or without us,” Heather Hardwick, Modoc’s deputy director of emergency services, told ABC. California governor Gavin Newsom has yet to address the defiance. Modoc isn’t the only California locale to face opposition to the state’s anti-coronavirus measures: protesters gathered at Huntington Beach in Southern California Friday to advocate for a reopening of the state’s beaches.