San Francisco mayor’s defiant message after breaking own mask rule
A mayor caught breaking her own mask rules to go clubbing has dug in her heels, defiantly revealing the reason she “wasn’t thinking about a mask”.
San Francisco mayor London Breed is digging in her heels after kicking them up without a mask last week.
Ms Breed, who issued one of the strictest indoor mask mandates in the state last month, refused to back down after she was photographed at a city jazz club dancing and singing without a mask earlier this week.
“While I’m eating and drinking I’m going to keep my mask off,” Ms Breed, a Democrat, told reporters while calling the story a “distraction”, Fox News reported on Saturday.
“And yes, in the time while we’re drinking like everyone else there, we were all having a good time and again all vaccinated.”
Ms Breed said reporters should focus on live music returning to San Francisco. She added that putting a mask on in between eating and drinking isn’t “realistic”.
“The fact that this is even a story is sad,” she said.
But Ms Breed’s own city ordinance mandates masks indoors, vaccinated or not, unless the person is actively eating or drinking.
“My drink was sitting at the table. I got up and started dancing because I was feeling the spirit and I wasn’t thinking about a mask,” Ms Breed said.
“I was thinking about having a good time and in the process I was following the health orders.”
Ms Breed added that she and her fellow club-goers “don’t need the fun police to come in and micromanage and tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing”.
“The fact that this story became about me and less about the artists and night-life, which I will continue to enjoy in San Francisco, is very unfortunate,” she told reporters.
Ms Breed announced the need for the new mask mandate in August as the Delta variant surged.
“Our economy and livelihood, and our kids going back to school, and everything in between depends on it,” she said at the time.
San Francisco mayor defends not wearing a mask while partying, says she "got up and started dancing because I was feeling the spirit and I wasn’t thinking about a mask." pic.twitter.com/WDzLiBN5JZ
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) September 20, 2021
Photos and videos of the event showed almost no one in the club wearing a mask.
The Black Cat Nightclub’s Instagram page had posted, and then deleted, a photo showing Ms Breed smiling and partying with friends maskless on Wednesday evening, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
She was accompanied by Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza and singer Raphael Saadiq.
This article originally appeared on NY Post and was reproduced with permission