No, there isn’t a curfew in Georgia. More answers about new shelter-in-place order
No, authorities here are not closing the Chattahoochee River bridges between Phenix City and Columbus, nor are they asking anyone traveling to and fro for documents.
“We’ve actually had a couple of people ask that,” Columbus Mayor Skip Henderson said of rumors spawned by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s statewide “shelter-in-place” order telling residents to stay home for two weeks during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The order takes effect at 6 p.m. Friday and expires at 11:59 p.m. April 13.
It requires Georgians to avoid all nonessential travel. It does not close the state’s borders, nor deploy local police to set up roadblocks for questioning motorists.
“We’re not going to be doing that,” Columbus Police Chief Ricky Boren said Friday.
Still that was the impression some got: “I heard I’ve got to have papers to get back into Columbus,” a caller told Assistant Police Chief Gil Slouchick.
Boren said the department got inquiries from area businesses that operate around the clock, wanting to ensure employees can get to work. It also heard from families worried whether it was OK to travel to care for ailing relatives.
Rumors of a curfew circulated. The governor’s order establishes no nightly curfew when residents have to be home, so people are allowed to be out after dark, if they need to be.
Also no declaration of martial law has deployed armed forces to patrol the streets and make people go inside.
Slouchick said the point of the governor’s order is the same as previous emergency declarations: “Don’t leave your house unless you have to.”
Residents still are allowed to go to work, to buy food, to visit a pharmacy, to get to medical appointments and to care for family. They also can visit state parks and go for a walk or a run.
They are to avoid gathering in groups of 10 or more, and they are to stay at least six feet apart around others.
Henderson said the governor’s order suspended all local emergency declarations, so the mayor’s March 20 declaration, which he extended on March 31, will not be amended to comport with state instructions.
The Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association have provided some clarification of Kemp’s order, and the city likely will use that for further guidance, he said.
Otherwise, not much has changed, yet.
“It’s nothing different at this point,” Boren said of the police department’s procedure. Officers will not randomly be stopping people to ask where they’re going or demanding justification for their being away from home.
But they will confront people who clearly are violating the order by holding unauthorized gatherings. “We will look for obvious violations,” he said.
Sheriff Donna Tompkins said her office also is taking that stance.
“We’re not going to be pulling people over to ask, ‘Where are you going?’” she said. But deputies will disperse a crowd: “We would be responding to an event involving a congregation of people.”
Authorities have said anyone caught repeatedly disregarding the order can be charged with a misdemeanor. If convicted, the offender can be fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a year.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 5:42 PM.