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Chattanoogans who violate COVID-19 orders could face $50 fine under proposed ordinance

Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / As the rally begins it meets a couple of Chattanooga Police Officers on the Market Street Bridge. A Freedom Rally was held on the Market Street Bridge to protest governmental measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event occurred on April 19, 2020. Staff Photo by Robin Rudd / As the rally begins it meets a couple of Chattanooga Police Officers on the Market Street Bridge. A Freedom Rally was held on the Market Street Bridge to protest governmental measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event occurred on April 19, 2020.

By Sarah Grace Taylor April 20, 2020 2 min read

The city of Chattanooga will consider imposing a $50 fine for residents who violate Mayor Andy Berke’s COVID-19 executive orders.

A proposed ordinance on the City Council’s agenda on Tuesday would establish that “any person violating any provision of the proclamation or orders related to [a] civil emergency issued by the mayor” may be issued a citation in city court and subject to a fine up to $50 plus court costs, for each violation.

According to Berke’s chief of staff, the ordinance came from the city attorney’s office in order to clarify enforcement of the orders, given the novelty of a state of emergency during a health pandemic.

“The City did not already have anything in its charter that specifically considered infectious disease pandemics from an enforcement standpoint,” Communications Director Richel Albright wrote to the Times Free Press late Monday.

The ordinance would also add a provision to the city’s charter, adding that police “shall enforce a strict observance of the laws of the state and the city, any sanitary regulations promulgated by the state board of health or the county director of health and any executive orders issued by the governor of the state or the mayor of the city relating to the prevention or control of infectious, contagious or malignant diseases.”

Berke has previously issued several executive orders in March, which closed various businesses and created other restrictions to improve social distancing ahead of similar restrictions by the state, and said Monday that he will not commit to lifting them on a certain date.

A member of the mayor’s staff said that the ordinance had been in the works well before a recent protest about such orders and before the governor announced that his statewide stay home order would be lifted at the end of April.

To pass, the ordinance must get a majority vote from council this and next week.

Council Chairman Chip Henderson was not immediately available for comment after business hours on Monday.

This is a developing story. Stay with the Times Free Press for updates.

Contact Sarah Grace Taylor at staylor@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6416. Follow her on Twitter @_sarahgtaylor.