Belleville citizens, restaurateurs and bar owners feel like they’ve been played by their mayor. A lot of them.
Like many would-be dictators around the country, Mayor Mark Eckert enforced COVID-19 “guidelines,” shutting down indoor dining and advising citizens to stay home - guidelines he himself blithely ignored.
He joins a shameful list of lockdown hypocrites: Gov. Pritzker’s family outings to their horse farm in Wisconsin and equestrian estate in Florida; Chicago Mayor Lightfoot’s “haircut for me but not for thee” because personal grooming is important to her; Speaker Pelosi’s clandestine and unapologetic San Francisco salon blowout; Austin, Texas Mayor Steve Adler’s admonition to stay home, recorded while he was on vacay in Cabo; and perhaps the most egregious - Gov. Gavin Newsom’s unmasked meal fit for a king at the poshest of restaurants in Napa Valley… while advising Californians they should put their masks on in between bites.
While the less equal citizens of Belleville did what they’d been told, the mayor and his wife crossed the Mississippi River and had a grand meal at Rigazzi’s on the Hill in St. Louis.
Just like all the other do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do would-be dictators around the country who thought they’d never get caught violating their own strictures, Eckert had his brazen hypocrisy exposed on social media and had to issue an extenuating-circumstances apology of sorts.
The mayor and his wife had just taken an innocent drive to look at Christmas lights and had somehow crossed the river and wound up at Rigazzi’s. Rest assured, they wore masks when they weren’t seated. Well, that’s okay, then.
“This was not a plan to sidestep the guidelines set by the State of Illinois,” Eckert assured his outraged fellow citizens. Plus, “I am diligent about supporting Belleville and I rarely go outside of Belleville to eat or shop.”
Citizens of Belleville and everywhere also long to dine out, but instead they heed “stay at home” edicts, believing the sacrifice is for the greater good as they have been told.
As of Wednesday morning, Eckert’s Facebook apology had racked up more than 700 comments - mostly harsh, but to the point, like this one:
“So you obviously feel like businesses should have the freedom to be open and individuals should have the freedom to decide if they want to eat in them. Your apology is useless. How dare you hinder any local places from offering similar services!”
The criticism is deserved. If Eckert loses his re-election bid next April, he can eat out all he wants and not worry about “optics.”