The waiters and waitresses serving tables in nearby Orange County don't have to wear such a suffocating contraction covering their masks, but, oh, this is Long Beach and our health mandarin and her apparatchiks know what's best for everyone's well-being.

Ashley Morales must wear a face shield when she waits on tables at Nico's.in Naples. Photo by Mr. Krikorian.

Frankly, I'm surprised Kelly Colopy hasn't forced our local servers of culinary goodies as well as spirits and hops to protect themselves with those Hazmat suits often worn by doctors and nurses to protect themselves from fatal viruses.

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"Oh sure, we take a lot of kidding wearing these face shields" says Paula Critie, a long-time waitress at Phil Trani's. "Because they look like something you see in space films, people often say stuff like, 'Houston we have a problem.'"

That's a reference to what was uttered by astronaut Jack Swigert during the April 11, 1970 Apollo 13 mission to the moon that was aborted after an explosion in which, blessedly, Swigert and the other two astronauts were able to make it safely back to Earth.

I've been told by those wearing the face shields is that they're terribly uncomfortable, make normal breathing more difficult, and even fog up on occasion.

Kelly Colopy, who did her undergrad studies at Smith College, a prestigious private women's college in Northhampton, Mass., with such celebrated grads as Margaret Mitchell, Nancy Reagan, Julia Child, Betty Friedan and Barbara Rush, should now wear one to show just how seriously committed she is about doing what it takes to avoid the dreaded Covid-19.

I mean, this is a person who obtained her Master's at Duke University, that bastion of fairness and openness and honesty and integrity with a wide diversity of views among its professors and students as was graphically shown a few years back when it quickly expelled three Blue Devil lacrosse players falsely accused of rape and yet kindly enriched these gentlemen with a $60 million settlement.

Wow, are we so lucky in Long Beach to have a leader who went to such staggeringly expensive lengths to go to such enlightened schools, and learn to have an independent streak and think for herself and not always follow the dictates of people like the ghastly Los Angels mayor Eric Garcetti and his health chief?

Oops, I guess I'm mistaken and, alas, Kelly Colopy treads in lockstep with Garcetti and his minions, and she even has taken it a step farther, as evidenced when 10 commandos from her Ministry of Security & Enforcement recently invaded the Boathouse searching for noontime violations in which they found none and did nothing more endearing than chase several customers out of the restaurant.

It's bad enough the California governor Generalissimo Gavin Newsom has locked down indoor restaurants dining again and, and caused thousands of small cafes and a lot of large ones to close up shop for good in the process.

It's bad enough that all those restaurants serving alcohol in the wildly popular Parklets -- the wait for people last Friday night in Naples and Belmont Shore was at least an hour -- now have been advised that those customers seeking a drink must eat something other than chicken wings, calamari, French fries or onion rings and instead, must order either a hamburger or a regular dinner.

It's bad enough that the reeling Long Beach restaurant owners must adhere to Colopy's face shield edict, but they also must endure the litany of onerous, burdensome, irksome, wearisome, distressing, ad nauseam, protocols coming out of Newsom's office that Colopy's dutifully enforces and that I won't list because of space limitation and because I find most of them absolute pish posh.

It's bad enough that the Long Beach Health Department on all its releases now has in place a snitch line, listing a special e-mail address and phone number for those Deep Throats and Joe Valachies out there given to tattling anonymously on perceived violations (well, like a waiter without his face shield, for heavens sakes! Or a table being only five feet away from another table!).

It's bad enough that Big Brother Government is now telling us what we can and can't consume in restaurants in this city in order to enjoy an alcoholic beverage.

Am I in America? Is this really happening?

I'll believe it's happening only on that momentous day when I spot Kelly Colopy wearing a face shield, which of course won't happen because no highly privileged person who attended Smith College and Duke University would dare be caught adorn in such an unappealing, non-elitist, proletariat apparatus. . .

As if it's not difficult enough as it is for the Long Beach restaurant owners to operate under the gnawing Covid-19 restrictions that's been instituted against them, the geniuses at City Hall have formed a special Task Force to supplement Kelly Colopy's gendarmes. They were seen the other day at Aroma De Roma measuring the distance between tables, making sure it was the mandatory six feet. When is this lunacy going to stop? No wonder Bob Ludlam is departing for Prescott!

(Those brave and patient enough to find out about the maze of strictures being imposed on Long Beach restaurants should go to this link.)

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Previously by Mr. Krikorian: