New Jersey Tries Naming-and-Shaming, Fines to Stop ‘Corona Party’ Scofflaws

(Bloomberg) -- The vast majority of New Jersey’s 9 million residents are following stay-home orders. Then there are the folks whose DJ parties, drag racing and spitting on first responders lands them with criminal charges or fines and a spot on Governor Phil Murphy’s name-and-shame list.

On March 27, police in Ewing broke up a gathering of 47 people in a 550-square-foot apartment, according to Murphy, who lists some of the “knuckleheads” during his televised interviews and virus press briefings. In Lakewood on March 29, a couple were charged with child endangerment after having a lawn party of 30 to 40 people, including their five kids, according to a report on NJ.com.

More than two dozen people facing criminal charges were named in a press release by state Attorney General Gurbir Grewal. He and Murphy have warned of tough enforcement of laws intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Schools and businesses across the state are closed and residents are under order to stay home except for certain exceptions. Positive cases jumped overnight by more than 3,300, to 16,636, according to state data.

Grewal’s alleged offender list includes a group of men, ages 18-20, drag racing and doing doughnuts in a Piscataway school parking lot; a Warren County billiards hall owner who re-opened after the close order and had customers inside when police arrived; and a Pitman woman who left her home to throw a Molotov cocktail at a boyfriend’s residence. It did not detonate.

About half the incidents involved spitting or coughing on first responders. Hosts of at least a half-dozen weddings and parties also received summonses. The charges included disorderly-persons offenses, obstruction, hindering apprehension, harassment, maintaining a nuisance, trespass, failure to disperse and arson.

“Our police officers are going above and beyond the call of duty during this health crisis,” Grewal said in a news release. “Unfortunately, they are being called upon far too often to deal with people violating the orders put in place to protect us all -- or what is more egregious, people falsely using the coronavirus to spread fear or impede officers in their vital work.”

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