ATLANTA (AP) – Local officials are expressing concern that a statewide stay-at-home order from Georgia’s governor that took effect Friday evening will actually loosen some restrictions that cities and counties had put in place, including rolling back park and beach closures.
Gov. Brian Kemp had earlier refused to implement a statewide stay-at-home order and instead left the decision to local officials. That led to a patchwork of local orders and restrictions by counties and cities across the state.
But Kemp’s stay-at-home order, signed Thursday, now supersedes those local orders. That includes reopening many parks and beaches that local governments had ordered closed after seeing gatherings of people not obeying distancing requirements.
Tybee Island Mayor Shirley Sessions said that she was happy to see Kemp order people to stay at home statewide, but said she “feels somewhat betrayed” that the order overturns local restrictions, thereby reopening Tybee Island’s beach.
AP photo by Curtis Compton / Battery resident Dalton Becker has the Georgia Power Pavilion area all to himself to exercise outside of Truist Park, home of MLB’s Atlanta Braves, on March 31.“It’s scary really to think that we’d done so much to put things in place that would help combat this, and now it’s all for naught,” Sessions said in an interview Friday afternoon.