Greensboro Business Owner Launches Billboard Blitz Against Cooper’s Nonsensical Lockdowns

Photo/Billboard by Greensboro business owner Marty Kotis

GREENSBORO – A drive around the Gate City might leave you feeling like you’re in the U.S.S.A; then again, the six months may already have you feeling that way. A business owner in Greensboro has used soviet-inspired art to launch a billboard blitz that calls Governor Roy Cooper out for his arbitrary lockdown orders and exposes the ‘comply or die’ fear mongering being employed to justify inconsistent closures that are ruining subsets of the economy.

The Carolina Journal spoke with Marty Kotis, who owns several businesses in Greensboro (some are shut down, some are not), about the billboards and the burden of an arbitrary authoritarian:

“[…] The campaign, Kotis told Carolina Journal, is about “pinning Cooper down on scientific reasoning,” which the governor repeatedly claims is his basis for keeping bars, movie theaters, lounges, nightclubs, and other businesses closed. Cooper originally said bars and movie theaters would reopen as part of his Phase 2, but moved the dates, revised the phases, and prolonged certain types of business closures. Kotis owns several Greensboro restaurants, a brewery, and a movie theater. The theater remains closed under Cooper’s revised Phase 2.5. Meanwhile, Kotis said, gyms, restaurants, churches, and bowling alleys have reopened. Even some casinos reopened in May. 

The governor’s logic doesn’t make sense, Kotis said, and that’s the whole point. With the help of some Soviet-inspired art, he crafted his messages and splashed them on screen for passersby to see. And ponder. […]

Kotis sits on the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors, where he’s outspoken about the need for student safety and affordable education amid the pandemic. Most of his hospitality operations have been closed since March, he said in a recent Facebook post. He’s installed foot-operated door pulls, sanitizing stations, UVC air filtration units, and other safety equipment. He’s put staff testing and temperature checks in place. 

“What I want to understand is the science and data behind which businesses are allowed to open and which businesses are not,” Kotis said. “We should be focused on health safety practices and not on business types.” […]”

Governor Cooper has boasted about relying on ‘science and data’ during his press conferences, while also scolding those that don’t comply with his orders, shaming them, and strongly insinuating that noncompliance is killing people.

All while he issues wildly inconsistent commands to close this business, but open that one. It has all been arbitrary from the very beginning, with no ‘science or data’ to support the nonsensical orders. Cooper won’t even answer direct questions about why, for instance, bars cannot be open, but breweries with a bar can be. That’s if the question is allowed to be asked in the first place; the gatekeepers have been pre-screening questions for the weekly press conferences.

For instance, the laudable Carolina Journal, though admittedly not a Cooper fan, has been essentially blacklisted. Same for the North State Journal. Their sin? They don’t flatter Cooper as much as the WRAL’s of the world are willing to.

Some in the Cooper administration responded to the Greensboro billboards by saying that transmission is more likely indoors.

Kotis’ response? “NO SHIT!” See why that explanation does not satisfy Kotis here.

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