California Gov. Gavin Newsom appeared inside a restaurant in a county where eating is not allowed inside, but the governor’s office has said it did not dine at the restaurant.
He was there to meet with restaurant owners, who received a relief grant, Newsom spokesman Daniel Lopez told Fox News.
Newsom posted a video on his TikTok account with the famous George Lopez talking about where to look for the eligibility of the coronavirus vaccine. Newsom and Lopez were in Fresno, California, and are inside the Los Amigos restaurant.
An independent video of López was posted on the Facebook page of the Los Amigos restaurant. Lopez supported the restaurant’s food.
Fresno is on the most restrictive purple level, which does not allow food inside.
In early November, Newsom was spotted eating at Napa’s elegant French laundromat for a longtime councilor’s birthday. The indoor restaurant was not open to the public in Napa. Newsom got a bitter reaction for the exit, which he later called a “mistake.”
“I should have gotten up and … come home … It contradicted the spirit of what I’m preaching all the time,” he said. “I need to preach and practice, not just preach.”
Newsom said in his apologies that he wanted to “own” his mistake because he was concerned that he was undermining the security message he wanted to send to residents.
“I’m doing my best to try to model better behavior,” he said.
Leaving the French laundromat helped ignite a recovery effort that is gaining strength in California. Newsom organizers recall that they collected 1,825 million signatures. They need 1.5 million signatures before March 17, but they represent a fraction of the signatures that will be rejected.
Newsom’s competitor if the recovery race is successful, Kevin Faulconer, hit the governor even for appearing in a restaurant when others in the county can’t.
“Gavin Newsom continues to prove he’s nothing more than an incompetent elitist who couldn’t care less about California families,” John Burke, Kevin Faulconer’s director of communications for the governor, said in a statement to Fox News. “Their failures have paralyzed the economy of our state and have altered the lives of millions of families. We will remember him and start a comeback in California to get our state on track. ”