Restaurant Owner Calls Out Film Set Next Door to Her Shuttered Bar

An L.A. restaurant owner is calling out Mayor Garcetti and Gov. Newsom for allowing film sets to continue operating, while once again closing down outdoor dining … but her comparison might be apples to oranges as far as containing the virus.

This is restaurateur Angela Marsden, and she posted a video showing  a movie production in full swing — with outdoor tables and tents set up right next door to her now-shuttered eatery, Pineapple Hill Saloon & Grill, in Sherman Oaks.

In the video, Marsden says she can’t fathom why her restaurant was forced to shut down (again) — even after she had successfully ran outdoor dining for months behind her building — but film sets like this, which look virtually identical in set-up dining-wise, can soldier on.

The new rule — restaurants close on-the-spot dining, while music/video production can keep rolling — is one of many that have left Angelenos scratching their head as Mayor Garcetti has instituted a new stay-at-home order in the City, which just got expanded to all of SoCal.

In a section about activities and businesses allowed to keep operating, production in L.A. can continue — which explains the Sherman Oaks set — but it says clearly … they gotta follow COVID protocols as outlined by the County.

That’s where Marsden might be mistaken in her juxtaposition. Fact is … there’s a ton of rules that production companies must abide by in order to shoot, including regular testing, plus a bunch of other mandates … mask-wearing, temp checks, social distancing, sanitized sets, etc.

The big difference is the testing, and who’s allowed in or out. A movie or TV shoot can have an awful lot of people on hand (just like a restaurant) at any given time, but the dinstinction is that the set — while it’s shooting — is treated almost like a bubble, whereas a restaurant is revolving door of strangers, who aren’t required to get tested to partake.