Letter to the editor: Local politicians are cowardly

Please — let me get this right because I’m confused by all I’m seeing and hearing on all local TV newscasts and to a lesser degree by newspaper and radio reports.

Because of an increase in covid-19 diagnoses in Allegheny County, almost all of them among young people — especially those frequenting South Side and Oakland drinking establishments — county Executive Rich Fitzgerald is front and center.

Effective 5 p.m. June 30, he said, all bars and restaurants are prohibited from selling alcoholic beverages “in house,” no matter how scrupulously they obeyed all directives by rearranging establishments, spacing out tables, monitoring alcohol intake and requiring employees to wear masks.

Cut to another news story: Yet another lawless mob of protesters blocks a major Downtown Pittsburgh artery, Liberty Avenue, for the second time in a week because they disapprove of a bar owner’s right to post and enforce a dress code (a legal and admirable maintenance of high standards).

While the ragtag mob illegally blocks traffic, cameras quietly observe that almost none of them are wearing masks, once again thumbing their noses at safety precautions as the covid-19 tallies swell.

Oops, here’s the county executive again telling us how he’s protecting county residents.

Does any politician in the city or county have the intestinal fortitude to confront the lawless riffraff blocking streets, to protect business owners of integrity and to butt out of the lives of rules-abiding citizens who have earned a libation with their dinner?

Fitzgerald, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto and several other cowardly local politicians are embarrassments to Western Pennsylvania.

Ed Blank

Mt. Lebanon