Well, kids, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but just in case you don’t pay attention to anything vaguely internet-related: COVID-19 is back!
The omicron variant is sweeping the country (Thanks, globalization! Thanks, anti-vaxxers!), including Santa Barbara County, and it’s more contagious than ever! Yahoo! So mask up, vax up, and keep your head up—as long as it’s 6 feet away from other heads.
According to county Public Health’s online dashboard, 57 residents were hospitalized due to the virus with 3,375 positive cases, as of Jan. 4. As of Dec. 30, almost 20 percent of the people getting tested were positive (That’s higher than ever by at least 3 percentage points!) with almost 100 cases per 100,000 residents.
And those numbers don’t even include the residents who are testing at home and not reporting their information to the county. So keep those saliva droplets to yourselves and plan to hunker down (Again! I know, it’s rough) for a few weeks.
You know who else needs to hunker down? Lompoc police officers, who will be inundated with babysitting calls for pot smokers who can’t hold their pot, according to Lompoc City Councilmember Gilda Cordova. Now that her fellow City Council members passed an ordinance allowing cannabis smoking at permitted events in three of the city’s parks, public safety in that town is going to be even more of a nightmare, she said during a Dec. 21 meeting.
“Altering substances,” like marijuana will take police away from day-to-day duties!
Cue unnecessarily dramatic music!
“Is that reasonable to consider that we would be taking officers that could be on the streets of Lompoc … and now they’re going to be answering—or babysitting—an event,” she said during the meeting.
Well, I think “altering substances” could include myriad things. Like wine, spirits, beer, and even coffee and tea. Yeah, I said it. Coffee and tea!
What’s next? An energy drinking event where folks will (gasp) get too jittery and take up our public safety resources? Where will we draw the line?
Lompoc Councilmember Jeremy Ball was feeling pretty similar, alluding to wine festivals and the Lompoc Christmas Parade as events that could drum up similar concerns. No. Not Christmas!
“If we’d like to get into the weeds on this, pun intended, let’s talk about the difference between a 2,500 person wine event and a 2,500 person cannabis event. And let’s go from there,” Ball said, apparently feeling very punny! And I support him in that quest!
Cordova responded that she’d be willing to talk about that “when it’s appropriate, but that’s not what we’re talking about today.” OK. So, are you just saying “no” to weed? Pun intended.
I don’t get it. When exactly would be a more “appropriate” time to have that discussion?
And when did Lompoc become the most liberal city on the Central Coast? That city’s laws governing the sale and use of cannabis put places like Santa Barbara to shame.
At least that’s something to look forward to. This summer, when the omicron variant has lost its shimmer and the fading green hills glimmer in the sun, if nothing else, you can light up a joint in a public park in Lompoc.
The canary applauds the right to be babysat. Send thoughts to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jan 6-13, 2022.
