‘It’s not martial law’: KC officials offer some clarity on stay-at-home order

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    KANSAS CITY, MO (WDAF) — The Kansas City area’s stay-at-home order is just hours from going into effect.

Cities and counties are working together in the fight against COVID-19, and people staying at home are the best weapon to stop its spread.

Kansas City, Missouri, law enforcement officials gathered Monday to explain what will happen after midnight, what’s expected of the public and to clear up confusion about what the order means.

“It’s not martial law,” said attorney Maureen Brady with McShane Brady, LLC.

The stay-at-home order calls for just that — staying at home.

It requires people to stay at home unless doing an essential activity, including the following: working at an essential business, getting necessary supplies or services, going to the doctor, taking care of a loved one or exercising and maintaining personal health.

Other than that, stay home.

Non-essential businesses don’t have to close, but employees must work from home.

“There are actually legal implications to this, primarily because the stern way they were trying to get people to stay home wasn’t working,” Brady said.

“People were still congregating over the amount of 10 people at a time, people were still frequenting businesses that they shouldn’t have.”

The way the stay-at-home order is written, violating it could get you a fine of up to $500 or even potential jail time.

“That’s not our goal here,” KCPD Chief Rick Smith said.

Police won’t be pulling people over or asking to see paperwork proving they’re essential employees. This isn’t going to be a police state.

“What we’re asking people to do is do the right thing. If we run into an issue where we think public safety is in jeopardy and it’s violating the order, the police department may get engaged,” Smith said.

“But just for normal people going to the grocery store going to the pharmacy, I think we were asking them to do is do your business and return home.”

Smith said this isn’t about punishment. It’s about stopping the spread of COVID-19 and flattening the curve so we can get on the other side of this quicker with less damage done to the community.

If the city gets a report of a business illegally operating, the fire department and Regulated Industries steps in.

“The only thing the our fire inspectors will be doing is going in and checking to see, one, in fact if they are open and, two, if their occupancy is exceeding 10 and especially if it’s a restaurant or a bar,” KCFD Chief Donna Maize said.

Regulated Industries, which grants and regulates business licenses in KCMO, has several options for citing businesses that do not comply.

“It could be citations; it also could be me taking them before the board if it comes under our licensing. So there’s a few different avenues. It depends on how we want to do it,” said Jim Ready, manger of Regulated Industries.

“But more than that, what we wanna do is see them just be closed and take the problem away, so we’re just trying to do our part to make sure everybody stays safe at home so we can try and contain this thing as much as possible.”

That’s including businesses like Brady’s law firm, which is packing up and going home.

“We need to do our part. Democracy is advanced citizenship,” Brady said. “This is us taking responsibility for each other and doing what we can to save everybody.”

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