Police let NJ gym open its doors despite lockdown violation

Throughout the many weeks of the lockdown, an ideological battle has raged across America.

It has been fought between those, on one hand, who believe they have the right to work, so long as their actions do not damage other people; and those, on the other side, who champion the powers of state governors to impose tough restrictions on businesses and individuals alike.

Those tensions came to a head on Monday morning in the town of Bellmawr in southern New Jersey.

 A local gym made good on its promise to reopen despite such a move being a violation of Governor Phil Murphy’s lockdown restrictions.

Hundreds of supporters and dozens of reporters crowded around the front the Atilis Gym early Monday as the owner and his team did indeed open their doors again, an act of defiance that was in violation of the state’s order that all such facilities remain closed to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Ian Smith, co-owner of Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, unlocked the doors to allow a limited number of members to use the facility as local police cars ringed the strip mall parking lot and set up traffic control with barrels.

Members were being checked for temperatures as they entered. Smith said they will limit capacity to 20% or about 44 people at a time. The gym also placed red marks on the sidewalk outside the premises to indicate where people could stand six feet apart while waiting in line.

“If they shut us down today, we’ll reopen tomorrow,” Smith told the crowd, who had been gathered for hours waving American flags and signs in opposition to the state’s near-lockdown restrictions that have only recently begun to ease.

As it turned out, a local police officer did eventually approach the owners, according to eyewitness accounts. However, rather than the SWAT team that some onlookers feared might be scrambled to teach the gym a lesson, the officer simply stated that the gym was in violation of the state’s order prohibiting the operation of such businesses, which Governor Murphy has deemed “non-essential”.

The officer even wished the gym operators and their supporters a nice day and received a cheer for his trouble.

The case of the Atilis Gym in this corner of New Jersey has been watched closely as a test case of civil disobedience against lockdown restrictions that some people argue are too draconian, and are denying people their right to make a living.

Executive orders do not have the force of legislation and some legal experts have questioned the extent to which they can be enforced by the authorities when they are defied by ordinary citizens.