Country club members tee up outrage by asserting privilege

SAN DIEGO -- I'm not accustomed to feeling ashamed of people in my beloved hometown. But, amid a global pandemic, the self-centered members of a Fresno, California, country club managed to get my blood boiling.

I feel blessed to have been born and raised in the San Joaquin Valley. Cradled in the heart of California, its farmland provides more than half of the nation's fruits, nuts and vegetables. The region also produces some of the best -- and most genuine -- people on Earth.

These are just simple folks, scratching out a living in dozens of hardscrabble small towns. What you see is what you get. Most residents don't put on airs, but they do put the interests of others before their own.

Of course, there are exceptions. Leave it to COVID-19 to reveal them. This plague brings out the best in some folks, the worst in others.

The evening news is full of stories of heroism, compassion, love and sacrifice. The saintly are taking meals to hospitals so that health care workers have the strength to stare death in the face hour after hour. Others volunteer to pick up food or medicine for the elderly and physically challenged.

Many Americans seem to have gotten the message that this is the time to stay home, tighten our belts and do without some of the luxuries to which we've become accustomed, in what country singer Waylon Jennings might describe as "this successful life we're livin'."

Unfortunately, others missed that memo.

Here you have all these heroic doctors, nurses, and medical staff who show up to work at hospitals every day, and they only ask one thing from the rest of us -- just one darned thing: Stay home. These warriors are on the front lines, but they don't want to see you there.

So, they plead, just stay home.

Who knew this would be such a tough order -- especially in the Golden State? Although California Gov. Gavin Newsom was the first chief executive in the nation to close dine-in restaurants (March 17) and issue a "stay-at-home" directive (March 19), people kept heading to parks and beaches for the next two weeks until Newsom closed those, too.

Many Californians are too entitled for our own good. We stubbornly refuse to take orders from anyone, and we think quarantine is spelled "v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n."

That seems to be especially true in Central California. The New York-based company Unacast used GPS tracking data from mobile phones to figure out who is staying put, and who isn't.

The state of California got an overall grade of "B+" for its social distancing efforts. Fresno County got a "D."

Some members of the San Joaquin Country Club deserve an "F" -- for having a bad attitude. They're "jonesing" to play golf again. So they're asking the city of Fresno to exempt golf courses from a March 19 shelter-in-place order -- issued by Mayor Lee Brand with the backing of the Fresno City Council - that allows only "essential" businesses to stay open during the pandemic.

You mean trying to hit a little white ball into a cup buried in the ground isn't "essential?" Who could have guessed that?

Honestly, I thought this was a joke. Until I read where the country club members had hired legal counsel. Naturally.

Local attorney Adam Stirrup told reporters that -- while he respects the need to maintain social distancing -- "what we're asking is for the city to allow the club's private members to walk their golf course and play golf."

The formal letter to city officials was more lawyerly -- and less friendly.

"By preventing members at private country clubs from using their facilities, you are depriving them of their private property rights and the rights of these individuals to the use and enjoyment of their private property without due process," Stirrup wrote.

Private property? Due process? Suddenly, I'm glad I didn't go to law school. Just reading that argument made me want to take a shower.

Mark Standriff, the city of Fresno's director of communications and public affairs, held firm to common sense. Unlike health care, transportation or banking, a golf course is not an essential business, he insisted.

"We're not trying to take away people's freedom and what they enjoy," Standriff told reporters. "What we're asking the public to do is temporary. And what we're trying to do is do what's best for the safety of our community."

There's the rub. If these snobs cared at all about the overall community, they wouldn't have spent so much money to become members of a private club - the kind of place that was built to keep the rest of the community at a safe distance.

========

Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com. His daily podcast, "Navarrette Nation," is available through every podcast app.