GAYLORD, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – It’s been more than three years since the Whitmer administration issued some of the strictest and longest COVID-19 lockdown measures in the country, and a Gaylord restaurant owner is continuing his fight against those orders.

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Ian Murphy, owner of the Iron Pig Smokehouse in Gaylord, filed suit in Otsego County against the Health Department of Northwest Michigan.  The filing is a “Complaint for Declaratory Relief” and does not cover damages beyond attorney costs and fees. It seeks to remedy the state’s emergency public health orders which were deemed unconstitutional by the Michigan Supreme Court in October 2020. Three days later, Gov. Whitmer cited an obscure 1918 Spanish flu law which gave powers to local health departments

“In the first part of the shutdowns [in March 2020] we did shut down and do takeout only,” Murphy told social media journalist Dave Bondy in a recent interview. “It always seemed like things were a little ‘off’ and it should have been handled a different way,” Murphy said, referring to the subsequent mask and sign-in orders from the state.

The Iron Pig faced repeated backlash from the Whitmer administration, local health department, and Attorney General Dana Nessel and orders to shut down over “non compliance” regarding masks and take-out only edicts.

Gov. Whitmer issued her first COVID-19 orders in March 2020, which marked “three weeks to flatten the curve.” It included closings of restaurants, bars, hair salons and schools, and continued with extensions without Legislative approval until June.  Later that summer, Whitmer told Michiganders to wear masks. In November 2020, Whitmer issued another lockdown for three weeks, which resulted in a slow reopening of businesses that lasted until July 2021.

“At the end of the day…we are fighting for things to be done in proper way,” Murphy said. “Short memories could be just as deadly [as COVID-19],” he said.