Earlier this month Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot went viral in a series of internet memes. Now the notoriously tenacious public official is making headlines once again for her unorthodox tactics to keep local residents off the street during the current stay-at-home mandate.
According to the Chicago Tribune, during a press conference Wednesday, the no-nonsense lawmaker reminded citizens to stay home and then shared an anecdote about how the day before she opted to personally drive around the city, telling people standing in crowds to be more mindful of social distancing to avoid spreading COVID-19.
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“I personally drove around yesterday, and I was up on the North Side, in the 50th Ward, and I’ll continue to do that,” Lightfoot recalled. “I told people that I saw gathering in clusters not abiding by the social distancing rules to break it up. Yes. And I’ll continue to do that.
“I mean what I say: We have to protect ourselves. We have to be smart about what we’re doing in the course of this pandemic. And if it means that I drive around and check whether people are in compliance, I’m happy to do it.”
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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is personally going around the city breaking up social gatherings – https://t.co/xsXt2RfNIV
— Reid Wilson (@PoliticsReid) April 10, 2020
“Most people do a double-take and are like, wait, is that the mayor? And then as we roll away, you’ll hear somebody saying, ‘Hey, that was the mayor. Hey, that was Lori Lightfoot,'” she said in the interview with Connected to Chicago.
“The other night I think we literally broke up an underage drinking party. There were some young folks that were in a garage with the door up, it was a beautiful night, we pulled by and I told the driver, ‘Back up,’ rolled down the window and said, ‘Hey, you’re too close. Separate yourself. Social distancing!’” Lightfoot recalled. “And we heard one person, I won’t repeat the expletive but they said, ‘Oh,’ and you can figure it out. So we had a little fun with it.”
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However some thought the mayor’s actions a little contradictory as she got a haircut during the mandate, defending it as part of her duty to look appropriate as a public servant.