Court orders Clarks Grove restaurant to comply with executive orders

As of Monday, the Freeborn Country District Court has granted the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office’s motion for a temporary restraining order against Pour House in Clarks Grove.

A week ago, Attorney General Keith Ellison’s office sued the establishment for openly violating the ban on indoor on-premises dining in Gov. Tim Walz’s Executive Order 20-99. A day after the lawsuit was announced, the attorney general’s office filed for a temporary restraining order to prevent Pour House from further violating the order and to compel it to comply with the order and any future applicable executive orders.

“There is good cause to believe the State will prevail on the merits of its claims that Defendant is violating and about to further violate Modified Executive Order 20-99,” the court wrote. The court ordered that Pour House is “prevented, restrained, and enjoined from taking any action violating Executive Order 20-99, as modified and extended by Executive Order 20-103, including but not limited to offering indoor on-premises consumption of food or beverages and allowing more than five members of the public inside its restaurant at one time,” and that it “shall fully comply with Executive Order 20-99, as extended and modified by Executive Order 20-103, and any future Executive Orders," the court wrote, granting the order.

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The latest executive order is a targeted dial-back of certain activities to halt the spread of COVID-19. Among the requirements of the executive order, as modified and extended by Executive Order 20-103, are that bars and restaurants must close for on-premises indoor dining until Jan. 10, 2021, at 11:59 p.m.

The attorney general’s office states that Pour House must now comply with the orders or risk being found in contempt of court.

“Yet another court has recognized the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the firm legal foundation of the State’s legitimate interest in putting a stop to it,” Attorney General Ellison said. “I thank the thousands of Minnesota bars and restaurants that have done the right thing and met their responsibility to their communities by continuing to follow the law. A handful are choosing to ignore their responsibility: by so doing, they’re simply extending the pain the pandemic has already wrought upon all of us.

“We’re continuing to seek voluntarily compliance from all establishments affected by the executive orders. Enforcement action is a last resort, but I will not hesitate to use it when I have no other choice to protect Minnesotans from this deadly virus,” Attorney General Ellison concluded.