{"id":88831,"date":"2020-05-01T18:24:06","date_gmt":"2020-05-02T00:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/law-enforcement-favors-education-over-citation-in-enforcing-safer-la-plata\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:26:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:26:55","slug":"law-enforcement-favors-education-over-citation-in-enforcing-safer-la-plata","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/law-enforcement-favors-education-over-citation-in-enforcing-safer-la-plata\/","title":{"rendered":"Law enforcement favors education over citation in enforcing Safer La Plata"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=13e28425-76f9-40dc-a75e-c2fae471ed9b&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" alt=\"\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Education is the focus of current enforcement efforts of San Juan Basin Public Health\u2019s Safer La Plata order that delays most nonessential business openings in La Plata County until May 8.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first course of action is education,\u201d said Durango Police Department Chief Bob Brammer, in a telephone interview Wednesday. \u201cOf course, it is a governmental order. There are statutory consequences if businesses fail to comply, but the first course of action is education.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith said deputies will concentrate on educating noncompliant businesses about SJBPH\u2019s order. The policy focusing on education was adopted in consultation with the 6th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s Office, county attorneys, city attorneys, elected officials and other law enforcement agencies. The agencies meet three times weekly as part of a local policymakers\u2019 group that has now moved meetings to Zoom.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can tell you Monday was one of our longer meetings,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>Deputies will go to businesses to provide information about Safer La Plata on a \u201ccomplaint-driven process,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n<p>Flyers have been given to deputies to inform noncompliant businesses about proper dates when they are allowed to operate, and civil and criminal penalties that could result if they remain open, he said.<\/p>\n<p>The enforcement policy emphasizing education is similar to what deputies did under Colorado Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 earlier order called \u201cstay at home.\u201d He was aware of only two incidents, early on during the stay-at-home order in which deputies went to noncompliant businesses to provide educational information and to inform them they should close.<\/p>\n<p>Brammer and Smith both noted noncompliant businesses could face civil and even criminal penalties if they continue to operate in violation of the SJBPH public health order.<\/p>\n<p>Smith said if a business remained open after knowingly violating the Safer La Plata order, it could face civil penalties from its state licensing agency and eventually even criminal penalties if noncompliance continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we can\u2019t get compliance, the business could face civil action. It could face revocation of its state license. Criminal action would be a last resort,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:parmijo@durangoherald.com\">parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Officials take soft approach with noncompliant businesses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":88832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[338,685,28,29,686],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-88831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-business-enterprises","tag-coronavirus-covid-19","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-san-juan-basin-health-department"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88831","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=88831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88843,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88831\/revisions\/88843"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88831"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=88831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}