{"id":49968,"date":"2020-12-10T01:52:10","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T08:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/preliminary-injunction-issued-against-cjs-diner\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:49:24","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:49:24","slug":"preliminary-injunction-issued-against-cjs-diner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/preliminary-injunction-issued-against-cjs-diner\/","title":{"rendered":"Preliminary injunction issued against CJ\u2019s Diner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A preliminary injunction was issued Wednesday against CJ\u2019s Diner, requiring it to abide by all public health restrictions applicable to restaurants as long as La Plata County is in Level Red public health status in an effort to minimize the spread of COVID-19.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A preliminary injunction requiring CJ\u2019s Diner to comply with all current public health orders in place for restaurants in La Plata County, including a ban on in-person dining, was issued Wednesday.<\/p>\n

CJ\u2019s Diner did not object to the issuance of the preliminary injunction, and 6th Judicial District Judge William Herringer asked attorneys to work jointly on a case management schedule that would allow CJ\u2019s Diner to receive timely hearings as it seeks to prove a ban on in-person dining exceeds the state\u2019s legal authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, it does the defendant no good if the preliminary injunction remains in place, and the case is not brought to a resolution until the public emergency is lifted,\u201d Herringer told the lawyers. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to be on the standard schedule with a normal civil case, so just please, everybody, keep that in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

The preliminary injunction will be in place until La Plata County moves out of Level Red restrictions down to less restrictive public health measures.<\/p>\n

A news release issued Wednesday by Jerry Martinez, owner of CJ\u2019s Diner, said, \u201cThe local restrictions are arbitrarily being applied to certain sectors, leaving affected business owners, employees and families without a way to earn (a) living.\u201d<\/p>\n

CJ\u2019s Diner attorney Marian Tone told Judge Herringer the restaurant would abide by all Level Red restrictions applicable as it pursues all legal avenues seeking prompt relief from Level Red restrictions.<\/p>\n

The restaurant\u2019s news release said, \u201cWe are protesting the recent SJBPH order that shut down all indoor dining because of the damage it is doing to our business and community and because we do not believe it is constitutional or legal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Goldberg, attorney for San Juan Basin Public Health, said trials are taking longer to set up during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judge said, let\u2019s do what we can to see if we can expedite this work,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know what the judge is thinking about. But maybe he wants to set this in three or four months for a trial.\u201d<\/p>\n

La Plata County moved to its Level Red public health order Nov. 20 after a dramatic rise in COVID-19 cases. The Level Red designation limits restaurants to offering only takeout, curbside and delivery services, as well as outdoor dining.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 1, CJ\u2019s Diner was issued a cease-and-desist order, but the restaurant continued with in-person dining.<\/p>\n

On Friday, CJ\u2019s was issued a temporary restraining order, but it opened again Saturday. It wasn\u2019t until Sunday that Martinez said he would comply with the judge\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that the health department\u2019s regulations are not right or fair,\u201d Martinez told The Durango Herald<\/em> on Sunday. \u201cBut (Saturday) when I was served the papers by the (La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office), and it had a judge\u2019s signature on it, at this point, we\u2019re going to respect that.\u201d<\/p>\n

CJ\u2019s Diner is now offering takeout and delivery as allowed under Level Red restrictions.<\/p>\n

After the hearing, Martinez said, \u201cThis is really not about CJ\u2019s because I believe that we\u2019ll be able to survive this to a certain extent. But the reality of it is the majority of restaurants are not going to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijjo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Restaurant must abide by public health orders as it seeks to overturn rules<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[685,13,28,29,668,450,686],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-public-health","tag-restaurant-and-catering","tag-san-juan-basin-health-department"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87670,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49968\/revisions\/87670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49968"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}