On March 17th, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to help slow the spread of the Corona Virus in California. These plans included shutting down all non-essential businesses and ordering the public to exercise 'social-distancing', meaning no public gatherings of more than 10 people and keeping a distance of 6 feet between yourself and another person.
The penalty for violating this order is punishable by a fine, imprisonment or both.
Despite this order, the State of California has refused to close one of the largest places of public gathering in most of our cities, the DMV, despite multiple requests from workers and union reps citing their fear of having the virus spread to them and other customers. Employees of the DMV sit 2-3 feet from each other. While customers are so packed in that they are sitting within inches of each other and forced to stand in tightly packed lines prior to entering.
And if that was not bad enough, the DMV has discouraged, or outright refused, to allow it's employees to wear items like gloves or face masks saying they do not want to 'offend any customers'.
And despite the easing of registration and license renewals through May, the Riverside, CA DMV had it's biggest day in history on Monday, March 16th.
There is no other business open that poses this big of a threat to the public. Thousands of people pour into every DMV office daily, many who have just arrived from foreign countries. There is no doubt that thousands of people will, and most likely have already, came into contact with the Corona Virus during their visits to the DMV.In these times when we are trying to keep our communities safe it makes no sense whatsoever to keep the DMV open. There is nothing about obtaining a license, ID or vehicle registration that makes it worth putting our communities and families at risk for. We have shut down all other places of large gatherings, except the one bringing in huge profits to the state of California.Please consider putting our people's health and safety above our states profits. This not only affects employees and visitors to the DMV. It affects our population as a whole.
